


Ten Steps to Planning a Successful Wedding (and How to Ignore Every Single One of Them)

by anarchetypal



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M, Wedding Planner Geoff, multiple references to wind waker, references to Michael Jones/Original Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-15 20:26:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3460901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anarchetypal/pseuds/anarchetypal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the years, Geoff's learned the best tricks of the trade for planning a wedding.</p><p>Falling for the groom, though—that’s probably not one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> from an AU post on tumblr: "i’m your wedding planner, but i’m also falling in love with you"

Giving in and making a website was probably one of the best decisions Geoff's ever made.

It's not like he's _old-fashioned_ , for what it's worth, but sometimes he's stuck in a pre-internet mindset, and so when he put an ad for wedding planning in the yellow pages, he figured that was good enough.

Turns out people don't really _use_ the yellow pages much anymore, and the people who do are over sixty years old and aren't really in his main demographic for "people planning to get married."

So after a few months of no work, Jack shoved him down in front of his laptop and told him to brush up on his HTML, and Jack's pretty scary when he's being serious about something—so, okay, giving in and making a website was probably one of the best decisions _Jack's_ ever made, but, hey, either way, Geoff got a shiny new website and shows up fourth down the page when you search "Wedding Planner Austin TX" on Google.

Not long after getting the site up, he started getting calls every other day.

So now he's got work, and his schedule's booked up, and he's meeting with couples almost every day, and it's pretty great.

On Mondays he meets with a couple in their late thirties in the morning—the wife-to-be is maybe a _little_ bit of a bridezilla, in that she's thrown no less than six hissy fits in the four times he's met with them (evidently even the _thought_ of tulips in the centerpieces at the tables in the reception hall is so reprehensible it merits full-on screaming in a public restaurant), so he likes to schedule them for mornings in the hopes that other couples during the day will seem level-headed and reasonable in comparison.

He's got a first meeting with a new couple today—a Michael Jones and a David Barr—who got engaged earlier this year and want to have their wedding in May, which is about six months from now. Geoff has planned weddings in less time, but on his website he mentions that the longer couples give him to work, the better the final result is going to be.

Six months is manageable with relatively frequent meetings.

He likes to meet at the couples' home at least for the first time, just to get a better idea of who they are as people and how they interact with each other.

So he rolls up to the house—it's surprisingly nice for a couple in their twenties—and parks by the curb. There's only one car in the driveway, but people can be particular about shit like that, so it's just easier to default to the street.

Geoff rings the doorbell, bag hefted over his shoulder; he's got a binder full of info on vendors and venues and basically everything he needs for a preliminary visit. From far off inside the house, a voice calls out _Coming!_ and he waits patiently, shifting from foot to foot and looking down at the fancy welcome mat.

"Hey," the same voice says when the door opens, and Geoff glances up to see a curly-haired guy in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, barefoot and holding a half-eaten apple. A flicker of surprise passes over his face.

That's normal. Geoff's pretty aware he doesn't really look like whatever a wedding planner is 'supposed' to look like: he's tatted up and his beard's a little scruffy, and he goes pretty much everywhere in jeans and old band shirts. Fortunately, he gets enough business that he can afford to pass up the couples who don't think he's 'professional enough.'

But the guy's surprise disappears as fast as it came. "Geoff Ramsey?" he asks, smiling. His cheeks dimple almost boyishly, and he steps back, pulling the door open wider.

"Yup," Geoff says, nodding, and steps inside as he guesses, "and you're... David?"

"Michael, actually," he says, shutting the door behind him. "David's in Houston." He rolls his eyes and offers Geoff an apologetic look. "Something for a case, I dunno. He's not gonna be back until tomorrow. Is that a problem?"

It is, a little, but it's nothing Geoff can't work around. "No, it's fine," he says, and Michael leads him into the living room. What he can see of the house is nice, expensive and neat like a picture from a magazine, and Michael almost stands out in stark contrast to the careful order with his bare feet and bushy hair and some apple juice sticking to his chin.

"Can I get you something to drink?" he asks, gesturing vaguely towards what Geoff assumes is the kitchen. "We got water, juice, soda, beer—" He breaks off, laughing, when Geoff visibly perks up at that last suggestion, and nods, disappearing for a minute.

Geoff sets his bag down against the coffee table and sits on the couch, getting his binder and a notebook out. Michael returns with two open bottles, sans apple, face clean of juice. He hands one off to Geoff and flops down onto the couch, looking more comfortable than most people Geoff works with on the first day of meeting them.

They do the small talk thing for a bit while they drink—Michael's a handyman and does part time in retail, Geoff learns, and David's an attorney at some firm Geoff's never heard of.

The conversation lulls awkwardly until Geoff catches sight of an Xbox in the entertainment center against the wall. "You game?" he asks, and grins at the way Michael lights up.

"Dude," he says, and rolls up his sleeves—he's covered in gaming tattoos, and suddenly Geoff doesn't feel nearly as uncomfortable in this picture-perfect house.

"I don't play Zelda games much," he admits, and puts his hands up in a surrender gesture, laughing, when Michael shoots him a surprised, mockingly-offended glance. "Sorry. Might have to now, huh?"

"I just don't think I can trust you as a wedding planner until you've played through Wind Waker at the very least," Michael says seriously.

"Speaking of planning." Geoff opens his binder and picks up the pen sitting on top of his notebook. "Generally the first step is just to get an idea of what sort of wedding you guys are looking for, and then we'll work on scheduling for the venues you're interested in. We want to do that as soon as possible so there aren't any scheduling conflicts." He shakes his head, snorting. "I could tell you some fucking horror stories."

"Well, I've got this—thing," Michael says haltingly, and he shifts to grab this fucking enormous binder, twice as thick as Geoff's, from the stack of books under the coffee table. At Geoff's incredulous glance, he sighs and rubs the back of his neck, tossing the binder down on the surface of the coffee table. It hits with an almost comically loud _thud_. "David and Mrs. Barr—Laura," he says immediately, like he's used to correcting himself, though the name comes out sounding awkward, "my, uh. His mother. They put a lot of thought into this shit ages ago."

"Obviously," Geoff says, flipping the binder open. It's full of lists and pictures—he's pretty sure he flips past a pros and cons list just for using Italian catering, what the hell—and is so overly excessive it actually makes him start missing the bridezilla from this morning. "This is..."

"Yeah," Michael agrees.

"Very..."

"Very."

"Thorough."

Michael snorts. "It's bullshit." When Geoff raises an eyebrow, he ducks his head. "I mean, it's just—a lot. I never really imagined doing all _this_ , you know?"

Geoff's worked with couples who have conflicting ideas about what they want their weddings to be like. It makes things harder, but if they've got a solid relationship where they're open to communicating and compromising, it's manageable. He's already basically figured out that David's maybe a little uptight—he'd bet that the house is all David's design—and Michael, well. Isn't.

"I'll make sure we figure out something that both of you love," Geoff says, and Michael relaxes a little. "Next week'll be easier with your fiancé here to weigh in on some of these decisions." He flips through the binder. "Can I maybe take this with me?" he asks. "Just to start narrowing down your options for vendors and stuff."

"Go for it," Michael says, like he's relieved to get the thing out of the house, and maybe he is.

The rest of the meeting goes pretty smoothly, but Geoff cuts it short; he really wants to wait until he can have Michael and his fiancé together to start making plans.

As he's packing up (the second binder makes his bag look ridiculously bloated), Michael digs through a stack of something in the entertainment center, eventually emerging with a triumphant sound.

"Wind Waker," he says firmly, and presses the case into Geoff's hands. "You gotta at least get to the start of the main quest by next week, or this just isn't going to work out, dude."

"This is my homework?" Geoff says, turning the case over in his hands and fighting a smile.

"Non-negotiable, sorry, I don't make the rules," Michael says cheerfully.

Geoff has worked with a lot of couples, a lot of personalities—kind people, stubborn people, funny people, uptight and irresponsible and everything in between. He doesn't always get along with the people he works with, which doesn't really matter, because you don't have to like someone to give them their dream wedding. You just have to know how to listen and plan and organize. It helps, though, to like your clients.

And, Geoff thinks as he drives back across town, he likes Michael just fine.

——

Next Monday puts him back at Michael's front door, bag hefted over his shoulder and stuffed full of David's big wedding binder. Geoff poured over the thing all week, making notes and cross-referencing and calling up venues and vendors to start asking about availability.

Whatever kind of person Michael's fiancé might be, Geoff can't say he isn't organized. It's probably going to be a little bit of a headache to work with him, but Geoff's had worse—currently has worse, with the couple he meets with on Monday mornings. Geoff hasn't made it a single meeting without bridezilla verbally berating him, or her husband, or her bridesmaids, or her _mother_ , or essentially just anybody who stays within earshot long enough to get yelled at.

If Geoff ever gets married, he's doing it at the courthouse. No muss, no fuss, in and out in twenty minutes.

Michael opens the door again, a near-perfect mirror of last week—long-sleeved shirt, jeans, barefoot, but he's got a beanie on his head this time, and instead of an apple he's got a cookie wedged between his teeth, a cell phone in his other hand.

"Yeah, man," he's saying, words coming out thick around the cookie as he waves Geoff inside. He transfers the cookie to his free hand once he shuts the door and flashes Geoff a smile. "Maybe this weekend or something. Lemme let you go, Ray, Geoff's here." He pauses, and then, "Fuck you," he adds amicably, hanging up a moment later. "Hey," he says, leading Geoff into the living room. "Let me get you a beer. You want a cookie, too?"

"Nah, I'm good," Geoff says, setting his bag down and settling onto the couch.

"I made them," Michael says, maybe a little coaxingly, and then admits, "well, I sliced up the Tollhouse cookie dough. Which is basically the same thing."

"Kudos for not just eating the cookie dough straight," Geoff replies.

"You could get salmonella poisoning," Michael says, all contrived seriousness like an impersonation of a suburban soccer mom. Geoff snorts and waves a hand at him, and he retreats to the kitchen.

It's not until Michael gets back and hands off a beer—and a cookie—that Geoff realizes: "Hey, where's David?"

A flicker of irritation passes over Michael so quickly Geoff's not sure if he imagined it or not. "Houston."

"Oh."

And, yup, there it is, that's definitely annoyance. Michael snatches his beanie off his head and tosses it aside, scrubbing his hands through his hair. "Sorry," he says. "He's not gonna be back until Thursday. I know that's gonna make it complicated—"

"It's okay," Geoff says, placating.

"Not really," Michael mutters. But then he sits down, shrugging. "It's whatever. I know what he likes. We'll work around it, right?"

The words ring sort of hollow to Geoff, but he's pretty good at being optimistic for clients. He pulls out the big binder and gives the cover a smack. "Right. Worst-case scenario, we'll refer to this. Book of fucking knowledge right here." That coaxes a smile from Michael. "If you want, we can reschedule for Thursday," Geoff offers. "I won't charge you for today or anything."

But Michael's shaking his head. "No, it's— He'll be tired when he gets back, and then it's, you know. Just easier to do it today."

Geoff's not going to argue it. "Okay. I've got a few venues in mind that work with your outdoors plan," he says, getting his own binder out. "There are a couple parks you can actually rent out and block off, and one of them's got a building that can work as a reception hall basically across the street? Which will make things easier for the transition from the ceremony to the reception. You get the idea."

Michael leans over to look at some of the pictures, expression sort of bored. After a moment, he lights up a little and makes a thoughtful noise. "What about something more exciting?"

"Like some kind of forest scene?" Geoff asks, because he's done that a couple times. He flips a couple pages over. "You thinking about doing a photo shoot?"

"Or like on top of a volcano."

Geoff pauses, raising an eyebrow, and glances over at Michael, who puts his feet up on the coffee table. "A volcano," he echoes.

"An active volcano. With lava and shit." It looks like he's struggling not to smile.

Geoff grins. "Pompeii themed wedding," he suggests, because this is better than the awkward, tense conversation about Michael's fiancé.

"Bring the fucking rings to Mordor," Michael says, and now he's giggling.

"Just get the ring-bearer to toss them directly into the volcano."

"Frodo ain't got nothing on us." Michael shakes his head and flips back through the binder, points at one of the pictures seemingly at random. "That one."

"Yeah?"

Michael shrugs. "Sure. Looks nice."

Geoff makes a note of it, uncertain. He figures next week they'll actually be able to finalize this. Maybe Michael will be able to take it more seriously with his fiancé here. "How many people are you planning on inviting?"

That earns him a deer-in-the-headlights look. "Uh."

Well. Okay. Maybe they're not as prepared as Geoff thought. "I'm just asking because the park and reception hall can hold between one fifty and two hundred people, so if it's much more than that, we're gonna have to figure something else out."

"I don't think it's more than that," Michael says, but he doesn't look sure about it. He gestures to the binder. "Does that say anything about a guest list?"

"Surprisingly, no," Geoff replies—and he's sure about that, because he went through the fucking thing over and over again until his eyes damn near bled with it.

Michael shifts and works his phone out of his pocket. "Okay, shit, I'll just call him and ask, hold on." He dials and cradles the phone against this ear, legs bouncing as he waits. "Hey," he says after a moment. Pauses. "Well, are you busy right this second? Geoff has a question about— _Geoff_. The wedding planner. He wants to know how many people are on the guest list." He pauses again. "It's not _in_ the binder. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm _sure_. It'd be sort of helpful if you were actually, you know, _here_ for this. Like, you're the one who wants—" He breaks off, rolling his eyes, and cuts Geoff an apologetic look before he gets up off the couch and retreats towards the back of the house.

He hears a door shut, and Michael's voice goes muted and indistinct.

The thing is, Geoff's worked with couples like this before—where they're at odds with each other—and while he can't really make any judgments about Michael and David because he's only met with Michael twice now, he's starting to think this might be a little more complicated than he'd anticipated.

By the time Michael comes back to the living room, walking heavy-footed and wearing an irritated expression, Geoff's halfway through his beer and the cookie got polished off a while ago. "Everything okay?" he asks carefully.

If anything, Geoff's cautious approach just makes Michael look more annoyed. He vaults over the back of the couch and lands on the cushions with a _thwump_. "Everything's great. One hundred seventy people on the guest list. Does that work?"

"That's fine," Geoff says, eyebrows raised.

Michael looks over at him and seems to deflate all at once. "Sorry," he mutters. "It's just— I think—" He breaks off and cards his fingers through his hair. "Is it gonna be totally impossible if it's just me and you working on this for the most part? At least for now? David sorta wants me to take charge of all this shit. Things are getting crazy for him at work, so he's gonna be traveling a lot and working weird hours. I dunno when it's gonna let up."

The truth is, no, it won't be totally impossible, but. "Would it make more sense to postpone until his schedule isn't so hectic?" he asks. "Have a summer wedding, maybe? Winter, even. Is that on option for you two?"

Michael looks stricken. "He really— We really want to try to pull it off for May," he says. "I don't mind making the decisions for all this shit, you know, it'll probably suck, but, like." He gestures vaguely. "You know when you have this whole fucking plan in place, you feel like..."

"Like you can't change it?"

Michael looks at him. "Yeah," he says, and keeps looking at him. Something in his expression changes. "Dude, I don't want you to think we're not, like, in a good relationship. We are, you know? Things are just weird with his work. I want to make this happen."

Geoff puts his hands up. "You don't have to convince me," he says. "Happy couple, happy wedding— I'll help you pull it off, kid, I promise. I don't want to brag or anything, but I do happen to know my way around this shit. Last year I got a wedding planned completely over the phone in less than four months. I am the Jesus of wedding planners. Working fucking miracles here. This is a cakewalk, okay?"

Michael grins, cheeks dimpling, the anger from before dissipating almost entirely. "So do you think the park is alright?" he asks.

"I think it's good. Outdoor weddings can be hard to pull off. There's always weather to worry about, shit like that, but it's definitely doable."

And then it's easy, to lapse back into flipping through binders and discussing catering and invitations and all the stuff Geoff knows how to talk about in his sleep. He gets a nice little list of options set up for Michael to go over for next week—Geoff's not sure if his fiancé is going to be there, and to be honest he's not planning on asking—and the couple hours are up before he even realizes it, passing faster than Geoff's ever had a meeting go. Hell, maybe things are actually _easier_ with just one half of the couple.

Or maybe it's just Michael. The kid doesn't take things too seriously, and he's funny as hell, and the way he just sprawls out on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table makes Geoff feel like he doesn't have to worry about toeing his shoes off and folding his socked feet up onto the couch when he wants to sit cross-legged, or worry about putting a coaster under his beer bottle, or the stuff he usually thinks about when he's in another person's house.

"Hey!" Michael exclaims, and suddenly Geoff's got Michael's index finger in his face. "Fuck you, you thought you could distract me from the most important thing we needed to talk about today."

Geoff frowns, brow furrowed, and shifts to look over his notes again. "What, catering? Because we already—"

"Motherfucking Wind Waker," Michael says, with a seriousness usually reserved for things like a DEFCON 1 alert.

Geoff laughs. "I got to the part where my sister gets kidnapped by that bird thing," he says.

Michael pulls off a 'Disapproving Algebra Teacher' expression pretty well. "That's it?"

"I wanted to play more," he admits, which is true—the game is cute, and entertaining, and the chance to just sit down and zone out with a video game for a few hours is like a breath of fresh air amid all the weddings he's working on. "But I've got a couple with their big day coming up in a couple months, so I'm swamped with finalizing everything and making sure all the vendors are gonna come through and keeping the groom from having a breakdown and deciding to change virtually every detail about the reception. Again."

Michael winces. "And you _like_ this job?"

Geoff snorts. "Trust me, this is _nothing_ compared to the actual wedding day. I get to run around in a suit and tie and prevent dozens of things from going wrong. Open bar access, though, so that's something."

"You? In a suit and tie?" Michael asks, snorting. "I'd love to see that."

That probably has something to do with the fact that the pair of jeans Geoff's currently wearing are covered in dried paint. "Hey, I look fucking great in a suit."

Michael raises an eyebrow. "I'm sure," he says, so blatantly patronizing it makes Geoff grin.

"You wanna go there, kid? I have plus-one privileges. I'll drag you with me and make you eat your words. Written formal apology."

Michael starts to snicker. " _Dear Mr. Ramsey_ ," he says, dropping his voice into a ridiculously posh British accent, " _I offer my sincerest apologies and must concur that you do, indeed, look pretty fly for a white guy_."

"Fucking right I do." Geoff shakes his head, smiling, and starts packing up his bag. "The couple's doing their ceremony in a park, though, like you wanna do," he comments. "Let me know if you want to sit in on that, or the rehearsal, get an idea of how that sort of venue actually plays out. Shit happens, you know?"

"Like?" Michael asks, looking skeptical.

"Like Uncle Joe's chair gets set up on top of a mound of fire ants, and wasps get into the peonies of the bride's bouquet, and it starts to hail." All in a two-hour period. Granted, that was definitely one of the worst ones, and generally things go pretty smoothly, but sometimes Geoff likes to put the scare into people.

But Michael's laughing, covering his mouth and shaking his head. "Holy shit. Sounds like a fucking party," he says, looking equal parts horrified and delighted.

"It's definitely something."

"And you _like_ this job," Michael repeats.

"You get the chance to meet a lot of interesting people," Geoff says. When Michael raises an eyebrow, he puts his hands up. "Seriously. That's not a cop-out answer. You wanna know the best and worst about a person, plan a wedding with them. You learn shit about people in this business."

"So what're you learning about me?" Michael asks, looking simultaneously amused and curious.

Geoff pretends to think about it for a few moments, fingers tapping against the arm of the couch. "You're really fucking passionate about Zelda games."

"Accurate."

"You want a violent, chaotic wedding reception. Lots of shouting. And bees."

"Absolutely. Something you can film and air on MTV. Is 'shitty reality television' a wedding theme?"

"You _really_ want to grab me a few cookies for the road," he concludes casually.

Michael grins, so infectious that Geoff can't even bother to try fighting a smile. "I think I can make that happen, yeah."

——

Weeks pass like this:

Geoff deals with Bridezilla and her fiancé in the mornings, and then works off the subsequent frustrations of that at Michael's place. More often than not, they're spending half the time talking about nothing or just dicking around in general, making up the most ridiculous wedding themes they can think of (Michael's currently winning with "1600s Witch Burning/Teletubbies") or breaking out the Xbox.

The first time Michael gets pissed at a game they're playing, Geoff gets to watch him hurl his controller through the (luckily open) front window while he spits some impressively inventive curses ("Burn in hell, you dumb _bullshit_ mother _fucking_ bouncing purple _ritz cracker fuck!_ "), only to go from sixty to zero in an embarrassed half a second when he seems to remember that Geoff's actually in the room with him.

("I hate this game," Michael says sheepishly, by way of explanation.

"I'm filming it next time you do that," Geoff says, a little awed.)

He hasn't seen Michael's fiancé once yet and hasn't asked about him lately, either, because it doesn't seem like he's planning on showing up at one of these meetings anytime soon.

And maybe it's weird to say it, but Geoff's sort of glad. He likes hanging out with Michael. He works with couples anywhere between six months and two years of their lives, so more often than not he ends up making friends with them, but it's always in that vaguely professional light—like he'll get sent a Christmas card every year, but he won't get invited out for drinks. Geoff goes to Michael's place, and it's for work, but it's like hanging out with Jack. Real friendship. A sort of closeness he doesn't really get with his clients.

Michael tells him about how he used to live in New Jersey, how he wants to quit retail and maybe pursue voice acting, how he's kind of terrified of doing that but "if I have to smile and nod at one more customer who's yelling at me because they don't know how to read a fucking sign, I'm going to kill everybody at the mall and then myself, I swear to god."

And Geoff talks to Michael about getting his first tattoo, and how he got started in wedding planning, and how it sort of feels weird sometimes to be a wedding planner when he's never been in a relationship that's lasted longer than a year and a half, let alone gotten married—how he's a wedding planner who doesn't even _want_ a wedding, wants to just hit up the courthouse instead and not think about flowers or color coordination or goddamn centerpieces.

It's easy to justify wasting time talking and playing games and generally doing anything other than making actual plans. It's fun to just be with Michael, and it's hard to get through a productive meeting without bringing up Michael's fiancé, and the way Michael always gets bitter or annoyed or subdued when he talks about his fiancé makes something hollow and aching open up in Geoff's chest.

And while they do waste a decent amount of time, they're still getting plenty accomplished. Michael's agreeable—praise-seeking, almost, strange as it is to say; he'll suggest something and then glance at Geoff immediately to see his reaction, and he'll practically _glow_ if Geoff responds positively. They work well together, bouncing ideas off each other easily, making decisions with a quickness Geoff never experiences when working with couples.

He knows at least part of that is because Michael's not taking this completely seriously one hundred percent of the time. He doesn't really get the complexities of Michael's relationship with his fiancé—and by "complexities" he really means "seriously messed up issues that should probably be resolved before the wedding date gets any closer." He's not stupid, or in denial; he's worked with a lot of couples, and the ones with communication problems are the ones who don't tend to make it to the wedding date.

There's a really good chance that this is going to end in a train wreck. Geoff knows that. But part of him wants to believe everything's going to come together somehow, and it's not like this is something he wants to bring up with Michael, anyway, not with the way Michael reacts when he talks about his fiancé. And it's hard to know what sort of things are his place to ask about. He's not a couples' counselor (even if it _really_ seems like it sometimes with some clients). It's not his job to get them to talk to each other.

He's just supposed to give them a wedding. And that's what he's doing.

And if he plays multiple rounds of Halo with Michael while doing it, well, it's usually Michael's idea in the first place, and he's still getting paid.

("You're weirdly happy tonight," Jack comments one evening; they're at Geoff's apartment, eating takeout with some shitty sci-fi flick running in the background.

"Tomorrow's Monday," Geoff says absently, eyes on the television screen.

Jack raises an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, and that doesn't usually make you smile like that," he points out. "Usually it drives you to drink."

"Me 'n Michael are scheduling a cake tasting and then doing a Mario Kart tournament," he explains, and he _is_ smiling, how about that.

He doesn't pay much attention to how Jack looks at him for a long time after that, brow knitted in something like concern.)


	2. Chapter 2

Next Monday morning nearly puts him in the hospital.

Which, that sounds a lot more serious than it is. What happens is he meets with Bridezilla and her fiancé, and she has another tantrum, and it's all probably Geoff's fault for bringing up a stressful conversation topic while she has a champagne flute in her hand.

Predictably, one thing leads to another, the glass gets thrown, and Geoff ends up not quite fleeing the couple's home with a fresh cut on his hand.

He's aware that he probably  _should_ make a pit stop at the ER for stitches, but he's already late for his meeting with Michael, and his insurance is shit, and it's not like he's in danger of bleeding out, so he grabs a fistful of fast food napkins from the messy back seat of his car and wraps them around his hand for the drive across town.

"Dude, I just got the new Assassin's Creed game," Michael says when he opens the door, "so we have to ignore all our responsibilities and— Geoff,  _what the fuck_."

"I'm okay," Geoff says immediately, because Michael’s staring at his hand, wide-eyed, and, well, there's a pretty decent amount of blood. "It looks worse than it is." He's not actually sure if that's true. His hand aches like a bitch.

"What did you  _do?_  Why are you  _here?_ "

"As opposed to—"

"The  _hospital_ , you stupid fuck."

"We have an established appointment?" Geoff tries, and Michael snarls something under his breath and drags Geoff into the house by the front of his shirt.

They bypass the living room, the kitchen, the guest bathroom—the only parts of the house Geoff's seen until now—and go into what appears to be the master bedroom, Michael dragging him by the shirt the whole way. "Don't get blood on the carpet," he snaps.

"Wow, your bedside manner is impressively sensitive," Geoff says. "I feel better already." He's getting the feeling that Michael just responds to injuries with annoyance, and that's fine. The concern is sort of nice.

Michael pulls him into the en suite. "Get those off your hand," he orders, though he does seem to soften his expression a little when Geoff hisses a bit at the way his hand throbs. "What happened?"

"Bridezilla broke a champagne flute and I got cut," Geoff says while Michael ducks to grab a little first aid kit from under the sink. "It's not that bad."

"Not that bad?" Michael echoes incredulously. He has Geoff wash away some of the blood in the sink, then douses the cut in antiseptic ("This is gonna sting," he mutters belatedly, while Geoff's already swearing with the pain) and closes it carefully with a butterfly bandage. He kneels on the bathroom floor while he works, Geoff sitting on the lip of the tub. "This'll hold it, I think. It's what I do whenever I cut myself on something at work."

"Thanks, nurse," Geoff says dryly. "Gonna kiss it better now?" Michael glances up at him, faint surprise on his face, and then rolls his eyes before bowing his head again to smooth the bandage over Geoff's hand.

Something jolts in him abruptly at the sensation of Michael's fingers on his skin, and it's not pain.

For a moment it's quiet, a comfortable stasis where neither of them move, Michael's hands cupping Geoff's injured one like it's the most natural thing in the world, and suddenly Geoff wants to card his free hand through Michael's hair, wants to—

Wants to  _stand_ , so fast Michael falls back from his knees to his ass on the tiled floor, and Geoff's heart is in his throat, because  _what?_ What the fuck? What is he even  _thinking_ right now?

"Thanks," he says again, stilted, mind racing. He helps Michael up off the floor automatically, and again there's that jolt when Michael grabs his uninjured hand, a jolt like want, like realization. What the fuck is happening to him?

"No problem," Michael says, brow furrowing in confusion. It passes pretty quickly, though, and he turns to pack away the first aid kit. "You need pain killers? I dunno if you're good to hold a controller, but if you still wanna game, we can—"

"No," Geoff blurts, and then, when Michael gives him another confused glance, "I think we need to start working on invitations. We can't just keep fucking around every time I come over or we'll never get anything done." His face feels hot.

"Oh," Michael says. Geoff tries not to focus on the way he looks disappointed, looks a little hurt. "Yeah, sure, that's fine."

"Good," Geoff says, but it isn't, not really.

——

It's a fluke.

That's what Geoff tells himself when he goes home, a few fingers of whiskey in and finally at a point where he can actually think about it. It's a weird fluke. He got caught up in a quiet little moment, and he was in pain, and people have weird, unprecedented thoughts about all kinds of shit all the time. Hell, Michael's attractive, objectively, and Geoff's brain knows Michael's engaged, but his dick doesn't, and seeing a good-looking guy on his knees would make anybody a little flustered, right?

Abso-fucking-lutely. Michael's just a friend—a  _client_ , he's a client, and he's engaged, and it's fine.

So it's a fluke. Geoff refills his glass and brushes it off.

——

"Why do you do this?" Michael asks.

Geoff looks up from where he's doodling absently in his notebook, his cell phone cradled between his ear and shoulder. "Because being on hold is boring as dicks and you're on single-player?" he replies, brow furrowed.

Michael laughs, shaking his head and tossing the controller down. "No,  _this_ ," he says, giving a sort of all-encompassing gesture. "Wedding planning. You don't really seem like the kind of guy who does shit like this, you know? No offense."

Geoff's at one end of the couch, on hold with a caterer, and Michael's at the other end, stretched out with his socked feet just slightly brushing against Geoff's leg when he shifts. "No offense," he echoes, snorting. He shrugs, thinking about it. "I helped a couple of my friends plan a wedding a while back. Turned out I was really good at it. The organization and attention to detail and arguing prices and all that bullshit. And it was sort of fun, seeing it all come together. After the wedding was over, they put me in touch with another couple who were looking to plan a wedding, and I was between jobs anyway, and—" He gestures vaguely. "And then it just sort of became a thing. I get to make my own schedule and I meet cool people—"

"And get attacked," Michael cuts in, raising an eyebrow and looking down at Geoff's hand.

"—and, yeah, not so cool people," Geoff admits, smiling. "But, hey. It's a living, and most of the time I like it a lot. Except when my hand gets fucked in a tantrum about—fuck, you know what, I don't even fucking remember  _what_ it was about, probably the seating chart? Something stupid. So except for that. And when I'm on hold until the dawn of the next goddamn millennium."

"You think you'll ever have a big, fancy wedding like this?" Michael's looking at all the notes and lists and dates and times spread out on the coffee table, a peculiar expression on his face.

Geoff barks out a laugh. "Are you kidding? No. Twenty bucks says when I get married I'll be drunk and in Vegas. And that's exactly how I want it to happen."

That startles a grin from Michael. "Gonna get married by an Elvis impersonator?" he says.

"Nothing would make me happier," Geoff says dryly. He holds his cell phone up to his mouth like a mic and croons dramatically, " _Lord Almighty, I feel my temperature rising_ —"

"Oh my  _god_ ," Michael blurts, delighted.

And, well, how can Geoff  _not_ show off after that? Even if his singing voice is shit.  _Especially_ if his singing voice is shit.

By the second chorus, he's standing on Michael's coffee table and fucking  _belting_ it out (and, okay, maybe he's had a little more beer than usual). " _Your kisses lift me higher, like a sweet song of a choir, and you light my morning sky with_ — Fuck!" he yelps suddenly. "No, shit, hi, I'm here, I completely forgot I was on hold," he says hastily, bringing the phone to his ear.

There's a lengthy pause, and then the woman on the other end hangs up.

"Shit!" Geoff throws the phone down and turns an accusatory look on Michael, but the kid's fucking losing it, lying on the floor with his hands over his mouth, poorly stifling laughter.

"That was  _beautiful_ ," Michael says, sitting up and starting to clap, the odd giggle still escaping him. "Fuckin' encore, Geoff, c'mon."

"Fuck off," Geoff huffs, but he's biting down on a smile. He gets down from the coffee table and goes to get his phone from where he'd thrown it onto the couch, reaching down to muss Michael's hair on his way. "You get to be on hold this time," he adds, dialing and then tossing the phone at him.

Michael catches it, trying to shake his hair back into some semblance of order. "So do I get to pick the karaoke this time, or...?"

"Fuck  _off_."

——

For the first time, somebody else answers the door.

The guy looks younger than Michael, dark hair and thick-rimmed glasses to match, dressed in shorts and a graphic tee and mismatched socks. Geoff pauses, the smile on his face fading in surprise at seeing someone else at the door.

"David?" he guesses uncertainly.

But the guy pulls a face, nose wrinkling. "Dude, don't insult me," he says, and then turns his head to shout back into the house, "Your scruffy booty call is here!"

"Um," says Geoff.

Distantly, he can hear a call of  _What the fuck, Ray_ , before Michael appears in the doorway and snags the guy by the back of the shirt to pull him away from the door.

"Sorry," he says, apologetic, giving the guy a shove back down the front hall and beckoning for Geoff to come in. "Ray doesn't know how to talk to people. This is why you shouldn't be allowed to answer the door," he calls after him.

"Scruffy booty call?" Geoff asks, letting Michael lead the way to the living room.

"Ignore everything that comes out of his mouth."

"He thought I was David," the guy—Ray—says, the same disgusted expression on his face. He's stretched out on the couch now, an Xbox controller in his hands, looking intensely at the television screen.

"Move, asshole." Michael shoves at his legs.

He doesn't budge. "You have like five chairs in here, why don't you— Aw, dude, no, get off!" he complains abruptly, and Michael doesn't move from where he's now sitting on Ray's legs. "You are crushing my ankles, I am a  _guest_ , you have terrible hospitality skills." They scuffle a little until eventually they manage to share the couch at least somewhat equally.

Geoff sits down awkwardly in one of the chairs. "Do you not like Michael's fiancé?" he asks finally—it's not his business, really, but he's seen people talk about literal garbage with less animosity, so he's a little curious.

"He's a shitty person and Michael deserves better," Ray says immediately. His tone is so deadpan that it's hard to tell whether or not he's joking, and Geoff glances at Michael, eyebrows raised.

Michael sighs deeply, like he's used to this. "Ray is very opinionated."

"Ray is  _not_ opinionated," Ray says, eyes not leaving the television. "The Kardashians are opinionated. Ray is  _right_."

"Okay," Geoff says after a moment, because how the hell do you respond to  _that?_

Ray lets out a quiet, triumphant noise when he reaches the end of the level in whatever the fuck he's playing—nothing Geoff recognizes—and he sets down the controller, finally turning to Geoff like he's worthy of his time now. "So you're Geoff."

"Yeah?"

Ray tips his head to the side, narrowing his eyes in some weird appraisal, and Geoff shifts slightly under his gaze. He nods after a second and raises his eyebrows at Michael, evidently managing to convey some kind of message in his expression, because half a second later he's getting beaned with a couch pillow. "Hey!"

"Don't fucking start," Michael says, wielding the pillow like he's ready to use it again.

"I didn't even say anything!" Ray protests.

Michael gives him a flat, unimpressed look.

He fidgets. "But if I  _did_ say something," he starts, and then suddenly they're both shouting, grabbing at each other and fighting over the pillow. Geoff is reminded, vaguely, of puppies rolling around and play fighting. He waits patiently, and the roughhousing seems to end when Ray gets knocked off the couch.

Michael glances at Geoff, like he's just now remembering that he's here. His face is a little flushed, and his hair's messed up. He clears his throat. "Uh, so Ray's here to help get the invitations addressed and stamped and shit," he says awkwardly. Ray waves at him amicably enough.

"Nice to meet you," Geoff says, grinning.

"I'm actually just here to make sarcastic comments and innuendo," Ray says, getting back on the couch. "Sometimes I do birthday parties."

"Anything else?"

"I'm also here to bring sexy back."

"Obviously," Geoff says agreeably.

"Okay," Michael says loudly, when they both start to laugh. "Quit bonding. You're not allowed to like him more than you like me."

"Are you talking to me or Ray?" Geoff asks, and gets the couch pillow launched at his head for his troubles.

——

The meeting runs longer than usual, but they manage to get every single invitation addressed, sealed, and stamped. Ray leaves a couple hours in and informs Michael that Geoff has 'The Ray Narvaez Jr. Stamp of Approval,' whatever the hell that means, which earns him a solid push out the front door.

By the end of the third hour, Geoff's hand is cramping something fierce and his cut, still healing, throbs achingly. "I should've brought Jack with me," he says. "He's got the neatest handwriting in the world, I swear to god. It's like a font."

Michael glances up from where he'd been frowning down at an envelope, pen held tightly in his hand. "And Jack is your..." he says, trailing off.

"Friend," Geoff says reassuringly—reassuringly?  _what?_ —and then awkwardly picks up his beer and takes a deep swallow from it. "I talk to him about you a lot," is what he comes up with by the time he's set the bottle back down, and, great. Awesome conversation skills, Ramsey. Way to sound like a weirdo.

But Michael smiles, and he relaxes a little. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. You'll have to meet him sometime. You'd get the, uh, 'Jack Patillo Stamp of Approval.'"

For some reason, Michael snorts with laughter. "I don't think so," he says. "Ray's just being an asshole," he adds, when Geoff raises an eyebrow at him, bewildered. "Don't worry about it."

And because Geoff's not letting a weird fluke of a moment of attraction towards his engaged client get to him, he doesn't.

——

"This is officially my favorite part of wedding planning," Michael announces.

It's Geoff's, too, if he's honest. What's not to like about cake? Today he brought over a huge pastry box with a dozen little pieces of wedding cake, different flavors and frostings and designs. It's a sampler, basically, to help Michael start narrowing down what kind of cake he wants at the reception and how he wants it to look.

So they're camped out in the living room with a bunch of cake spread out on the coffee table and some indie flick Geoff's never heard of before playing in the background. Michael had invited Ray over, but "he has some fucking weird thing about cake, I don't even know," so it's just the two of them.

"Oh,  _fuck_ ," Michael says, and he lets out this near pornographic moan that makes Geoff twitch a little. "This one. This one's the best, hands down. I pick this one."

Geoff laughs. "Yeah, I'd feel more confident about believing you if you hadn't said the exact same thing for the past three pieces you tried."

"I'm serious about this one!" Michael protests, and maybe he is, because he's sucking remnants of chocolate frosting off the tines of his fork. "Write this one down. The devil's food with the dark chocolate frosting."

"You gave the last one a seventeen thousand out of ten," Geoff notes, glancing down at his notebook. "What's your score for this one?"

Michael wrinkles his nose in thought, tapping the tines of the fork against his lower lip. "Thirty million," he says confidently, after a moment.

Geoff grins and obligingly jots it down. "You gave the first one a nine out of ten. Guessing that's out of the running?"

"Oh, I liked that one!" Michael says, brow furrowing, and Geoff laughs.

"You like all of them," he points out. "I think you'd be happy when any of them as long as it's chocolate."

"This one's  _really_ good, though," Michael says, earnest. He nudges the box towards Geoff. "Seriously, try it."

Geoff gives a pained glance at the box, still full of cake despite all they've eaten so far. Michael has this incredible bottomless pit of a stomach and hasn't slowed down for a second, but Geoff's pretty sure he's eaten his weight in frosting at this point. "I'm gonna have to pass, kid."

Michael gives him that coaxing, pleading puppy dog look that fucks Geoff over every goddamn time. "C'mon," he says. He spears a heaping bite of cake on his fork and lifts it up, eyebrows raised. "It's like a fucking chocolate orgasm. Just try it."

"I'm gonna throw up all over your fancy couch if I eat any more, kid, I swear to god," Geoff says, but Michael's got the fork in his face almost threateningly, starting to laugh.

"One bite."

"I don't  _want_ any," Geoff protests, whining a little, and he's scrambling down towards the other end of the couch as Michael comes at him with the fork.

"Look, we all have to make sacrifices for this wedding."

"It's not  _my_ wedding!"

"I need a second opinion!"

"Fucking ask Ray!"

"He said, and I quote, 'I'd rather watch twelve consecutive seasons of Law and Order: SVU in one sitting than eat any of that fucking cake.'"

Geoff pauses. "I  _like_ Law and Order," he mutters, and that's when Michael strikes. They scuffle, Geoff trying to grab at Michael's arms, and they're both laughing, and then—

"Whoops," Michael says quietly. He's got that wide-eyed, contrived expression on his face, but the corners of his mouth are twitching upwards, like he's only barely holding laughter.

And then his face softens gradually as his gaze drops lower to the bottom half of Geoff's face, to his  _mouth_ , and he's staring, and Geoff's sprawled out on the couch with Michael almost half in his lap with his mouth open a little and those big fucking eyes staring like maybe he’s thinking about—

Michael blinks.

"You have frosting all over your fucking mouth," he says suddenly, and he's smiling again, climbing off the couch, bracing a hand on Geoff's arm as he gets up.

It takes a minute for Geoff to find his voice. "Well, whose fucking fault is that?" he shoots back, getting up off the couch a little clumsily and following Michael to the kitchen. His face is hot. He rubs at his mouth, comes away with a streak of frosting on his hand, and that same hand is shaking.

He waits, fidgeting, while Michael soaks a few paper towels at the sink and walks over, raising the rags like he's about to start wiping at Geoff's mouth, and Geoff's pretty sure he'll have a heart attack and die on Michael's shiny linoleum floor if that happens.

So he snatches the paper towels from Michael's hand with clumsy fingers, heedless of the way Michael raises an eyebrow at him, and starts cleaning himself up.

It takes maybe longer than it should to get the last of the chocolate off his face, but at least it's something to focus on that isn't the way his whole body feels like a live wire with the way his mind's racing, ready to shock anyone who comes too close. He sucks remnants of the frosting of his thumb and tosses the used towels into the trash.

Then he washes his face off at the sink for good measure, hoping the cold water might throw him back into reality.

But Michael's still there when he dries his face on a dish towel, still smiling at him all soft and expectant, and Geoff is dangerously, recklessly happy right now. Might as well just take the fucking good mood and waiting until later when he's home along and drunk off his cheapest booze to overanalyze everything and hate himself. "You know what," he says, "you're right. Thirty fucking million out of ten."

Michael throws a fist in the air, dramatically triumphant. "So you pick this one?"

Geoff smiles at him. "I pick this one."

——

So it's not a fluke.

It's just a little— _thing_ —it's a crush, maybe, but fuck, that sounds like high school and blushing to the tips of his ears and every awkward piece of his adolescence coming together at once.

Michael emails him one night with a few questions about suits that almost seem like a formality for a link to a YouTube video. He adds a  _Saw this and immediately thought of you. Fucking hilarious! Let me know what you think :)_ , and Geoff feels like he's sixteen again, passing notes with the girl he likes in Chemistry.

But it's okay, it's fine, because he's not going to act on it, because Michael is getting  _married_ and Michael is like ten years younger than him (and wow, Ramsey, way to be unprofessional  _and_ creepy). People have crushes all the time, so. It's not a big deal. He can pack that away and focus on his job like a goddamn adult.

It's not a fluke, but it's not a  _problem_.

("You really like him," Jack notes one night, breaking into Geoff's story about Michael's latest game-related rage. He's got that look he gets sometimes that makes Geoff feel like a pinned butterfly underneath a magnifying glass.

And of course Jack doesn't mean it like  _that_ , he can't mean it that way, but it's all Geoff can think about. It's all Geoff can think about all the time lately. "Yeah," he says, feeling a little helpless, a little blindsided. "Yeah, I do."

But it's fine.)

——

Geoff's not entirely sure what possesses him to toss down his controller on a Friday night, pick up his phone, and call Michael.

He's called Michael before a few times, to say he's running late or to get clarification about something or to ask if it's okay if he brings lunch with him because, shit, he hasn't eaten since yesterday and he may actually start gnawing on the couch if he doesn't get a burger (and after that phone call, they just start getting take out during their meetings, which saves Geoff the trouble of worrying about when he's gonna fit lunch into his schedule).

But calling his client on the cusp of a weekend when he's not doing work? That's different. That's probably bad for his whole ‘I’m focusing on my job now’ thing.

He's about to hang up when the line picks up. "Geoff?"

"Oh," Geoff says, delayed. "Hi."

"Hi?" It sounds like there's a smile in Michael's voice.

Geoff shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck. "Uh, I actually just wanted— Wait, did I catch you at a bad time?" he asks, feeling abruptly even  _more_ idiotic, because it's a Friday night and Michael's in his twenties, he's probably  _doing_  something. "Are you busy?"

There's a pause, and then, "Nope," Michael says, too cheerful. "Just hanging. Got the house to myself tonight."

Oh. "So your fiancé is—"

"Working," Michael says, in a way that makes Geoff's chest ache a little. "But what'd you need?"

That's enough to jolt him back to what made him pick up the phone in the first place, and he bursts out with, "The fucking pirate girl is  _Zelda!_ "

There's another pause, longer, and then Michael's  _laughing_ , voice like sunshine, suddenly sounding farther away, like he's tipping his head back away from the phone as he laughs.

"Don't laugh, asshole!" Geoff protests, mock-outraged, but he's grinning now, too. "This is serious! Why didn't you  _tell_ me?"

"I wasn't gonna spoil it for you, dude," Michael says, close to the phone again, an odd giggle still escaping him. "Shit, you've been playing a lot, huh?"

"I have literally nothing planned for this weekend except finishing this game," Geoff confesses.

"You are the paragon of responsible adults," Michael says solemnly.

"Hey, fuck you, I have the freedom to play video games all weekend. I got everything finalized for that couple's wedding this afternoon."

"The one doing the ceremony at the park?"

"Yeah. Crunch time is  _over_. I get to put away all my notes 'till wedding day and play Wind Waker 'till my fingers bleed."

"Told you you'd like it," Michael says, sounding a little smug.

Geoff grins, cradling his phone against his ear and picking up his controller again. "You'll be lucky if you get it back at all."

"I've created a monster," Michael announces, rueful.

"It's fucking addicting," Geoff says, because he can admit that freely now. "I need to figure out what happens when you—  _Another_ puzzle?" he groans suddenly, slouching down on the couch. "Seriously? What is it with this game and puzzles? Are all the Zelda games like this?"

Michael starts laughing again, bright and full, and something fond tugs gently at Geoff's chest despite himself.


	3. Chapter 3

"You're not taking this seriously."

They're sitting side by side on the couch, Michael's feet up on the coffee table, Geoff's pulled up to sit cross-legged. Michael is staring at the paper in his hands with the sort of lackluster, glazed over expression usually reserved for watching paint dry, or watching grass grow, or fucking painting grass and watching it dry as it grows. Geoff can't really blame him; he's been tempted to break the monotony himself for the better part of an hour.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Michael deadpans. "How could anybody _not_ take folding centerpieces seriously? This is right up there with, like, life-saving surgery and disarming bombs. All of my concentration is right here."

"Are you _trying_ to fold it into a swan, kid?"

"Fight me, old man," Michael mutters, and that’s as good an excuse as any to go ahead and break the monotony. He must catch the spark of challenge in Geoff's eyes, because suddenly he's blinking and leaping off the couch with Geoff hot on his heels. "Whoa, hey, hold on— _Geoff!_ "

"What was that?" Geoff asks conversationally. He's got Michael in a headlock in the middle of the living room; the kid's red-faced with laughter and struggling to get free. "What'd you call me?" He smacks Michael gently on the cheek and pretends to yawn when Michael's efforts double.

"Old man," Michael huffs out. "Fucking old man who fights dirty. Get off."

"Apologize first," Geoff says, grinning.

"Are you _serious?_ "

"Completely serious."

"I fucking _pay_ you," Michael grouses, grabbing at his arms. "This is bullshit. You're, like, technically my employee. You can't keep me in a headlock."

"You gonna fire me?"

"You suck," Michael whines.

It's ridiculous: they're two grown men roughhousing; Michael's pretending to gasp for breath dramatically, and he's tugging at Geoff's arms, face still red, squirming against him—and suddenly Geoff's asshole brain takes the image and runs away with it, and holy shit, not _now_ , boner—

Geoff lets go of Michael like his skin's a thousand degrees, burning his fingertips down to the bone, so abruptly it sends Michael stumbling to keep his balance. Geoff has to force himself not to read into Michael's expression, surprised and almost like he's disappointed that the roughhousing's over.

And Geoff has to cut the meeting short not long after that, because his thoughts are rushing a thousand miles an hour, and he's screwed, he's so totally fucking _screwed_ because he can't stop thinking about getting his fucking hands on Michael and kissing him all lust-stupid, and Michael's getting _married_ , and Geoff doesn't think he can look him in the eye anymore.

(That night he dreams indistinctly, all colors and sensations and flashes of images: dimples, the way Michael's skin feels beneath his fingers, laughter. He wakes up at three in the morning half hard in his boxers, dumb with arousal and the aching, growing dread that he's a little in love.)

——

"I said I'd learn to waltz," Michael says one afternoon, apropos of nothing. They're both a little tipsy, indulging in a couple more beers than usual in the hopes it might make seating charts at least a little more interesting.

Geoff glances up from his notebook, brow furrowed. "Huh?"

Michael ducks his head. "I just— Like, ages ago, my mom said I should learn to waltz for my wedding, and I said I would because, you know, sometimes you just have to agree with your mom to get her to stop talking. She brought it up last night when I was on the phone with her."

"She's holding you to it?" Geoff asks, smiling.

Michael groans, flopping over on the couch, beanie slipping off his head and landing on the cushion next to Geoff's leg. "It's stupid, right? Who even knows how to waltz anymore?"

"Uh."

Michael looks at him, eyebrows rocketing up. "Seriously? You?"

"I'm a wedding planner," Geoff says defensively. "You learn shit like that in this business." He knows how to make elaborate hors d'oeuvres and how to play a few basic things on the piano and, yeah, how to do a few ballroom dances. And all of those things have come in handy, so there.

Michael's still looking at him, a thoughtful expression on his face. Finally he sits up and points at Geoff. "How much would I have to pay you to teach me?"

"You want me to teach you to waltz?" Geoff asks, surprised.

"How much?" Michael repeats.

"You wouldn't have to pay me anything extra," Geoff says, "but wouldn't you rather have an actual instructor show—"

"Nope," Michael says cheerfully, popping the 'p' and flashing Geoff that boyish smile that makes him relent every goddamn time.

He sighs. Well, fuck it, what's the harm? "Okay. Fine. I can give it a shot. When do you want to do this?" he asks, and then he groans, because Michael's already on his feet, pushing the furniture towards the walls. "Now?"

"Why not?"

"We're literally in the middle—"

"Of setting up the seating chart for the reception dinner," Michael says, "which is _thrilling_ , don't get me wrong, it's the _best_ , but I'd rather stumble around like idiots for a little while. C'mon. It'll be fun." He walks over to the couch and grabs Geoff by the hand, hauling him to his feet. "Help me move this."

"Manual labor isn't part of my job," Geoff grumbles, but he helps push the couch to the opposite wall, and soon they've opened up the living room. There's not a lot of space, but it's enough to get the basic steps down.

And then Michael's standing in front of Geoff, looking at him expectantly while he tries to remember how the hell waltzing works. He rubs the back of his neck. "So, uh. The main thing you do in a waltz is a box step, which is just..." He trails off, demonstrating in lieu of a verbal explanation, stepping forward-right-back-left-forward, looking down at his shoes as he counts off in his head, _one-two-three, one-two-three_.

Michael watches for a minute, then shifts and tries to mimic him, movements stilted and awkward.

"Right, so you're just stepping in a square. Four points. And then the turning and shit is pretty easy." He demonstrates, box stepping clockwise in a neat little circle. "Basically you just have to get that one step down and everything sort of builds off of that."

It takes a while, but Michael gets the hang of it, kind of—he's still hesitant, and without music it's hard to hear the beat in your head, so he doesn't really have the rhythm down.

It's not terrible, though.

"C'mere," Geoff says, smiling a little when Michael nearly trips over his own feet. "Try it with me so I can show you how to stay on beat." Scowling, Michael closes the distance between them. Geoff guides his hands into place, right hand held in Geoff's left one—and he feels nothing, nothing, _nothing_ , because he's just teaching a client to dance, he's done that before—and the other gripping his upper arm. He moves his right hand around Michael's body to press just below his left shoulder blade.

Michael fidgets, the muscles in his shoulder shifting under Geoff's hand. "This is stupid. We don't even have music."

"I'll count us off," Geoff says patiently. "You're gonna step back when I step forward, okay? We'll go slow." Michael looks dubious, but eventually he nods. Geoff glances down at their feet and shifts his weight. "Alright. One-two-three, one-two-three, _one_ ," he counts off, and then they're moving.

Sort of. Michael's stumbling, and standing too close, and hesitating, so Geoff steps on his toes a little every few steps. It probably doesn't help that they're both tipsy.

He can tell when Michael finally gets right on the cusp of an irritated outburst—some part of Geoff revels in that, in knowing Michael well enough now to be able to read all his microexpressions, see the furrow of his brow and the set of his jaw and know how close he is to throwing up his hands and giving up.

So Geoff stops, still holding Michael's hand, and gestures down at his shoes with a dip of his chin. "Here," he says, tapping his toes. "Up. Stand on my feet."

"Seriously?" Michael demands, skeptical.

"It'll work," Geoff says. "You can focus on how we're moving and get a feel for the rhythm of it. I do this with brides-to-be all the time."

Michael raises an eyebrow at him.

"And grooms," Geoff says hastily.

Laughing, Michael shakes his head and steps forward, completely in Geoff's personal space now. He pauses for a moment, then steps up, socked feet resting on Geoff's shoes, not nearly as heavy as he'd expected.

Geoff grips his hand tighter, other hand firm against Michael's shoulder blade to keep him from pitching backwards. They waver for a moment, struggling to find their balance, and then Michael leans in against him and they gain a slightly tumultuous sense of equilibrium.

And Michael's close, too close, so close it's making Geoff's heart run triple time; he can feel the heat of Michael's body nearly flush against his, can feel Michael's pulse in fingertips pressed against the back of Geoff's hand.

But he breathes, slow and deep, and Michael smiles at him a little cautiously, hands gripping tight like he's afraid of falling.

Geoff isn't going to let him go.

He starts to move, motions initially slow and almost drunken in how they weave, and so awkward, none of the grace Geoff's seen on dance floors—but it's worth it for the way Michael lights up once they hit their stride.

They box step in big, sweeping circles around the open floor of the living room, a slow, slow waltz practically in half time to some generic _oom-pah-pah_ tune Geoff's half hearing in his head and half humming. Michael's smiling at him, like _Hey, we did it, look_ , and Geoff has to remind him a few times to watch the patterns of their feet, because Michael keeps glancing back up to grin at him.

He can feel it when Michael finally gets the hang of it. He shifts into each step, leans his weight into the turns, is nodding his head a little with the beat, but he doesn't step off of Geoff's shoes and Geoff doesn't prompt him to. Instead, they speed up, bringing the dance almost up to normal tempo.

"Okay," Michael says after a while, "now I dip you."

Geoff snorts, rhythm nearly faltering with the mental image. "More like you'd drop me."

"I'm glad you think so highly of my strength. Your vote of confidence means everything to me."

"You don't even know how to dip somebody," Geoff says, laughing. "You can't even waltz by yourself yet."

"Right, and you're, like, the guru of dipping techniques."

"You're damn right."

"Here, let go, stop, I need to bow before your wisdom."

"Put that sarcasm away before you hurt somebody, kid."

Michael opens his mouth to shoot back a retort, eyebrows raised, so Geoff stops mid-turn, braces his hand against Michael's shoulder blade, and dips him ridiculously low with a dramatic flourish.

His lower back gives a faint twinge of protest, but it's worth it entirely for the way Michael doesn't quite shout, wide-eyed, grabbing at him with the desperate panic of somebody whose balance has been abruptly thrown off. Geoff can't help but smirk, maybe a little bit of a smug asshole about it.

"Ta-da," he says, and he'd probably be jazz-handsing if he weren't still supporting Michael's weight.

" _Jesus_ ," Michael says with feeling, looking at him, rolling his eyes, but he's smiling now and it lights up his whole face, softens all his edges.

He's still holding onto Geoff tight, but he's not trying to pull himself back up, just trusting, implicitly, that Geoff has him.

And, oh. Geoff aches, suddenly and finely, from deep in his chest outwards to his fingertips, full-bodied and so piercing he thinks his bones will remember it forever.

(Later, at home, drunk—because of course, because how could he not pour a glass or three to stop the shake of his hands—he thinks that if his life were a summer blockbuster, that would be The Moment. There, in Michael's living room, dipping him with ridiculous theatrics in a silly moment that shifts to Soft and Earnest and True and _that_ would be the goddamn money shot, the crescendo, the climax, the kiss between the two protagonists you've been rooting for this whole time.

What actually happens is he falters, freezes up like he's been stunned by a thousand volts.

What actually happens is he fucking drops Michael onto the carpet, and it's fine, because after a pause Michael laughs so hard he cries and he gets up and slings an arm around Geoff's shoulders.

But the moment's broken.

And even now, sitting drunk at his kitchen table, Geoff's not sure if he's relieved or disappointed.)

——

What he needs to do is take a step back. Establish some rules. Stop the self-indulgent shit, because it's not casual and harmless anymore—it's a _problem_ and he needs to make it stop before everything goes even more to hell than it already has.

No more roughhousing. No more waltzing lessons. No more sitting too close on the couch, no more ruffling Michael's hair or resting a hand on the back of Michael's neck or letting Michael massage his shoulders (it's like he doesn't realize he's fucking doing it half the time, hands alighting on Geoff's shoulders, thumbs digging into the muscles all casual while he talks about something Geoff can't even focus on because Michael's _touching him_ ). No more needless touching.

No more texting and emailing and phone calls, or hanging out with Michael hours after their weekly meeting is supposed to end, or letting Michael rope him into movie marathons and inviting Ray over and playing games until the sun drops low in the sky.

Geoff is going to spend two hours a week with Michael. He's going to talk only about catering, and guest lists, and reception hall decorating. He's going to leave and go home and not think about Michael again until their next meeting.

He's going to take a step back.

It's a pretty flawless plan on paper. He even manages it for a week, keeps a neat couple feet of space between them during their meeting, doesn't think about the way Michael looks at him, confused, or the way he seems to double his efforts to get Geoff's attention. Responds to texts single-worded or not at all. Every time he thinks about Michael during the week, he focuses on work for another client.

But his phone goes off late Friday night, the night before the wedding with the couple at the park, and he rolls over in bed automatically, groping for it, half-conscious. Answers it with fumbling fingers, working on autopilot, voice rough with sleep. "Hello?"

"Geoff."

“Michael?” And Geoff's exhausted, had been working on last-minute things for tomorrow's wedding until after midnight, but fuck if Michael's voice doesn’t consistently do to Geoff's brain what defibrillators do to hearts, so he's awake, abruptly, sitting up in bed and rubbing at his eyes. "It's two in the morning," he says, confused, when Michael doesn't say anything else.

"I know." Michael sounds funny, voice low and quiet and thick with something Geoff can't identify. Words are bursting out of him suddenly, fast and tangled. "I know, I'm sorry, I just— I needed to— I had to talk to you—"

"What? Michael, hey, just hold on for a second—"

"—or, _somebody_ , I don't know, everything's fucked and I thought you'd be awake and I wanted— Your voice, I thought maybe—"

" _Michael_ ," Geoff says, alarmed, the name punching out of him in a surprised breath because it sounds like Michael's _crying_ , angry and hurt, and it makes Geoff’s heart ache something fierce. "Slow down, kid, are you okay?"

" _Fuck_." There's a long, long pause where all Geoff can hear are slow, shaky breaths that gradually start to even out. "I'm okay," Michael says finally, and there's a sudden strain to his voice like he's really trying to sound like he is. "Wow, no, I'm okay, I'm—totally drunk right now?" He laughs wetly, but Geoff knows how Michael sounds when he's had maybe a couple beers too many, and it's not like this. "I'm drunk. I'm sorry, it's so fucking late—"

"It's okay," Geoff says helplessly, because what the fuck else can he do?

"I wanted to ask about the wedding.”

Geoff's head is spinning. "What?"

"The wedding. Tomorrow. The one at the park." There's another trembling, audible inhale, but his voice is a little stronger now. "You said I could go. With you. I know it's short-notice, but I need— I just— Is that okay? If I go with you? Please?"

That breaks a couple of his new self-imposed rules. Of course. But Geoff's hands are practically burning with the urge to be wherever the hell Michael is right now, pull the kid in and wrap his arms around him and tell him everything's going to be fine, it's okay, whatever's wrong is going to be okay.

"Geoff? Are you there?" Michael's voice has a high, panicked lilt to it.

"I'm here," he says immediately, automatically soothing because he's weak and he can't help himself. "Of course you can come with me. Are you sure you're okay?"

"What time does it start?"

"Michael—"

"What time?"

And Geoff goes quiet for a moment, because this is familiar—the quick, firm, decisive stubbornness Michael gets when he's not going to talk about something for all the money or begging in the world. So he sighs. "Okay," he murmurs, and then, louder, "The ceremony starts at four, but I need to be there at two. I can pick you up at one thirty?"

"Suit and tie?"

"Yeah."

"I don't have a gift or anything—"

"I'll take care of you," Geoff says.

There's a pause. "I know," Michael replies, voice wavering with a quiet, weird-sounding laughter. "I know you will. Thanks, Geoff."

"Anytime," he says, and he wants to ask a dozen things, _are you okay? did something happen? where are you? do you want me there with you?_ but he doesn't.

"I'll see you at one thirty."

"Definitely," Geoff promises, but Michael's already hung up.

Geoff sits there in the dark for a long time, phone still clutched in his hand, stuck with his thoughts and wondering how, exactly, this has become his life. He’s never heard Michael sound like that before—has never heard him _cry_ , for one, let alone the way he did, choked with tears and with anger so boiling and uncontained it shook his voice. What he wants to do, more than anything, is call Michael back, ask him what the hell is happening, but Geoff knows how the kid gets when he’s stubborn. Michael probably wouldn’t even answer.

And not knowing is harder than it should be.

Geoff's Plan A had been to pretend like his feelings weren't really an issue, and that had ended in a wet dream and a slow dance and falling endlessly, hopelessly deeper into the hole he's dug for himself.

Plan B had been to take a step back, and now he's going to a wedding with Michael as his plus one.

What he needs is a Plan C that won't come back around and fuck him in the ass.

So Geoff toys with his phone for a while, thinking about it, and then he dials. He flops back against the pillows as the phone rings, sheets rumpled and bunched down around his waist, and just before he expects the answering machine to pick up, the line catches. For a few seconds, there's just static, like somebody's fumbling to bring the phone up to their ear, and then a deep sigh tinged with the sonance of a groan.

"Geoff," comes Jack's voice, graveled and irritable, "it's two in the morning. Unless you're actively dying, I don't think I want to hear it."

"I'm picking you up at one tomorrow for a wedding," Geoff says brightly. "Wear a suit."

There's a very long silence. "Fantastic," Jack mutters finally, and hangs up on him.


	4. Chapter 4

“I don’t understand why I have to come.”

That’s probably the third time Jack’s said it during the drive to Michael’s, and thus far Geoff’s been able to avoid the question using his wit and cunning—meaning the first time, he didn’t respond at all, and the second time he cranked the radio up to car-shaking levels while Jack was mid-sentence.

This time, though, Jack’s looking at him pointedly, with that expression of _you can’t put this off any longer you fuck I won’t let you_ Geoff’s become very familiar with over the years. So he sighs heavily as he pulls up in front of Michael’s driveway, and honks twice, and tries, “Because I need to help move tables around the reception hall and you’re better at heavy lifting than I am.”

Jack raises an eyebrow and waits, ever-patient.

Geoff fidgets. “And also,” he blurts out finally, “because I need you to keep me from doing anything stupid with Michael.”

“Too late,” Jack mutters.

“Because he’s going to be in a suit,” Geoff continues inexorably, “and I think that might be a problem for me? Like I might forget how to speak English. Or spill a glass of wine on him and then it’s like, _oh no, what a disaster, here let me get you out of those wet clothes_.”

Jack is staring at him.

“ _And_ ,” Geoff concludes, “I’m going to have to drink to get myself through this, because there’s just no way I’m surviving this sober, so you have to be the designated driver.”

“But mostly the Michael-in-a-suit part?” Jack guesses.

“But mostly the Michael-in-a-suit-part,” Geoff agrees miserably.

Which, as it turns out, is a legitimate concern, because then Michael’s coming out of his house and heading down the driveway and Geoff has to struggle not to stare.

“Hey,” Michael says as he climbs into the back seat, cheerfully enough. The smile on his face is almost enough to make Geoff forget about the conversation they’d had last night, to forget about the shake of Michael’s words and the tears in his voice, and Geoff is tempted to bring it up, to ask what the hell _happened_ , but he knows Michael well enough at this point to realize he’d get shut down in a second.

So, “Hey,” he says, turning around in his seat long enough to flash him a smile before pulling away from the curb.

And thank god for Jack—sweet, enthusiastic Jack who introduces himself to Michael immediately and ropes him into a conversation about Zelda games that Geoff manages to contribute to at least a little bit (though he has to squawk in protest a few times to keep them from spoiling the ending of Wind Waker). The ride to the wedding location goes surprisingly smoothly, all things considered.

Then he barely sees Michael before the ceremony begins. This part is familiar; he switches gears to Wedding Planner Mode and starts rushing around, getting everything set up, calming down the groom, calming down the bride, calming down the groom _again_ (in fact it _is_ too late to change the seating arrangements, given that the ceremony begins in less than an hour, here, just take this glass of champagne and do some deep breathing, or, okay, the entire bottle of champagne, sure).

He’s working right up until show time, and so it’s not until the few moments before the ceremony starts that Geoff hastily slides into a seat between Jack and Michael. Jack gives him a smile, and Michael nudges him with his knee, and then the music starts up and the quiet murmuring of the crowd falls silent.

The ceremony is always that great, calm, Zen period of time during weddings where Geoff can get his mind organized and zone out a little bit and just generally relax, which is probably why it always seems to go by the quickest. They get to the vows, and Geoff chances a glance first at Jack (who’s teary-eyed, like he always is at this part of weddings every time Geoff drags him to one, doesn’t matter if he knows the couple or not, and it’s honestly one of Geoff’s favorite things about Jack, even if he also unapologetically teases him for it) and then at Michael, who’s—

Stiff and uncomfortable, back ramrod straight, jaw clenched, staring straight ahead like he’s watching a car accident and not the final moments before a couple is linked together in loving marriage.

It’s not the first time Geoff’s wanted to be able to read Michael’s mind, and his brain wants to fill in for what he doesn’t know, to make a guess, put words into Michael’s mouth with an equal mix of sadness and sick hopefulness (Geoff has come to terms, at this point, with the fact that he’s a bad person)—Michael’s imagining what it’s going to be like on his own wedding day, maybe, realizing he’s dreading it, realizing the date is coming closer and closer every day and he’s put himself on this path that he thinks is completely inexorable—

There’s applause, suddenly, coming from all sides. Geoff jolts at the same moment Michael does, and he realizes he’s missed the last few minutes of the ceremony entirely.

He wonders, briefly, about how many minutes of his life he’s missed because he’s been staring at Michael Jones.

Jack’s not-so-discreetly wiping at his eyes, and Michael’s snapped out of whatever the hell he’d been thinking about, and Geoff forces himself to switch gears again, to promise Jack and Michael that he’ll see them in the reception hall before he’s up out of his seat and rushing around, and soon everything’s back to that sweet mind-wipe of working on autopilot.

——

“I’ve never gotten to see you in full-out Wedding Planner mode before,” Michael says later.

Geoff’s finally gotten a few minutes of respite, not long after the bride and groom’s first dance. He’s sitting backwards in a foldout chair at one of the few unoccupied tables with Jack and Michael, elbows resting up on the back of it.

“That’s because we always end up goofing off during our sessions at your house,” Geoff replies, and he tries to sound stern about it, but Michael just beams and Geoff’s frown slides away easy as anything.

(Jack makes a nearly inaudible whipcrack noise out of the corner of his mouth, and Michael gives them both a bewildered look when Geoff elbows him hard.)

“I need a drink,” Geoff mutters.

“I got it!” Michael says cheerfully, and he disappears before Geoff can think to protest. Shaking his head, Geoff watches him go, an exasperated smile tugging at his mouth.

Jack nudges him. “You’ve been doing that a lot more lately, you know.”

Geoff glances back at him. “What, staring at Michael like a hormone-addled teenager?”

Jack shakes his head. “No. Smiling.”

Burying his face in his hands, Geoff groans out, “Fuck, am I that obvious?”

“Lucky for you, everybody _but_ him seems to realize how gone you are.”

“He’s gonna notice eventually,” Geoff says listlessly. “He’s gonna notice, and then he’s going to fire me and never talk to me again.”

Jack snorts. “Right. Or, more likely, you’ll _both_ be oblivious idiots together.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Geoff asks, shifting to face him completely.

“Geoff,” Jack says gently. “He _adores_ you.”

It almost makes him feel sick, how quickly and desperately he latches onto that, but— No, that’s wrong, Jack’s got it wrong, because fuck if Geoff hasn’t thought the same thing himself a hundred times over. Because Michael’s affectionate and physical with him, but—

But Geoff’s seen how Michael is with Ray. They push at each other and lean against each other and scuffle like rowdy children, so that’s just how Michael _is_. He’s affectionate and tactile and effortlessly in the pockets of everyone he’s close with.

Before Geoff has the chance to reply, though, a voice calls his full name from across the reception hall, and he sinks down in his chair automatically. “Oh, Jesus—”

“Geoff Ramsey,” the voice says again, the tone an unmistakably ‘Southern, takes-no-shit grandmother’ one, and the body attached to it matches perfectly. Eunice, the bride’s grandmother, is (in Geoff’s ‘frank but also strictly internal for fear of having his knuckles struck’ opinion) probably from the Paleolithic Era, but navigates the crowd with ease, no cane or walker necessary to aid her. She comes to a stop in front of Geoff and raises an eyebrow at him.

“Eunice,” Geoff says, going for a confident, warm tone but not entirely sure he hits a mark higher than ‘meek.’ “I was just about to look for you—”

“You owe me a dance, young man,” she says sternly, but cracks the slightest smile as Geoff heaves out a sigh and shifts to stand up—he promised her nearly two months ago that he’d dance with her on the wedding day, just to get her to stop demanding, but the old woman’s memory has turned out to be better than Geoff had been betting on.

Before he completely gets out of his seat, though, he catches sight of Michael pushing his way through the crowd towards the table, cup in hand.

“I’m going to have to bring in an understudy, Eunice,” Geoff says apologetically, throwing an arm over Michael’s shoulder once he gets close enough.

“Excuse me?” Eunice and Michael say in unison.

“Luckily, Michael here _just_ learned how to waltz, so I’ve got the perfect dance partner for you.”

Michael immediately looks equal parts wary and alarmed. “Whoa, wait a second—”

Geoff plucks the drink from Michael’s hand and gives him a shove. “He’ll sweep you off your feet, Eunice, I guarantee it,” he says cheerfully, and only barely holds in a laugh when Eunice rolls her eyes, snags Michael by the arm, and drags him off towards the dance floor with what appears to be a surprising amount of strength.

Michael throws a betrayed look over his shoulder; Geoff just tips his glass in Michael’s direction with a grin before sipping at it, and—

It’s perfect. It’s exactly what he likes, exactly the way he likes it. When did _that_ happen?

Jack starts humming. It takes Geoff a minute before he recognizes it as ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight?’ and chokes on his perfect drink, garnering a few strange looks while he hacks up a lung and shoots the occasional glare at Jack, who just smiles at him placidly.

“Stop,” he wheezes out finally, “stop _encouraging_ this shit, Jack, Jesus. He’s getting _married_.”

Jack has the sense to look apologetic. “Sorry, sorry. You’re right.”

“Jack,” Geoff says, something panicked welling up in his chest, “I think I actually do fucking love him.”

“I know.”

That makes him pause, rushing thoughts coming to a grinding halt. “You— What?”

“You started getting excited for Mondays,” Jack says, shrugging. “You smile whenever you talk about him—that stupid, dopey, lovesick smile of yours. I’ve known for a while.”

“I’m planning his _wedding_ ,” Geoff says, horrified. “It’s like a fucking Rom Com cliché. Somebody call Channing Tatum.”

Jack looks doubtful. “To play you?”

“Look, Jack, just give me this one, I don’t ask you for much.”

“Okay, that’s not even remotely true—”

“How did this happen?” Geoff shuts his eyes, something empty and frustrated and hopeless gnawing at the center of him. “How the fuck did this happen?”

“You fall for people fast,” Jack says. “And hard, and at the worst possible time.” There’s a little amusement in his tone, but mostly he just sounds sad.

For a long moment, Geoff’s quiet, eyes closed, just listening to faint strains of music floating amidst the murmur of the crowd. “I don’t know what to do,” he murmurs finally. He laughs, bitter. “My job, I guess. Be _professional_ , right?” Because he knows that’s what he has to do. It’s the only thing he _can_ do, realistically. And that shouldn’t make his chest ache, but fuck if Geoff doesn’t want to reach inside himself like he can pull the hurt out from between his ribs like a tangible thing.

“Do you think you can do that?”

“I want him to be happy,” he says, words coming out a little hoarse. “His relationship’s all fucked up, and I think he thinks he’s stuck in it, and I just— Fuck, Jack, I really just want to make him happy.”

“It’s not your job to make him happy,” Jack reminds him gently, because he needs to be the voice of reason, Geoff knows that, but the words hit solid and final like nails in a goddamn coffin. “It’s your job to give him a wedding.”

“Geoff!” comes Michael’s voice, and Geoff catches a glimpse of Michael’s grinning face and waving hand as he’s dragged from one side of the reception hall to the other by Eunice, who’s wearing a determined expression. “Drinking contest! C’mon, come watch, I’m gonna smoke her.”

Geoff smiles despite himself, partially because he knows the old lady is going to drink him under the table, and partly because he can’t help but smile at Michael, always, full stop.

_It’s your job to give him a wedding_.

Geoff’s not sure if he can do that anymore.

——

It takes a while to get Michael out of the back seat, because he’s evidently totally fucking useless when he’s hammered, and considering the circumstances Geoff shouldn’t find that as endearing as he does, but he’s buzzed and fighting a smile as he hauls Michael out of the car and up to his front door, waving off Jack’s offer of help. “Okay, where are your keys?”

Michael sways a little where he stands and gives Geoff a blank look. “Um.”

Christ. “Pockets?” Geoff asks patiently.

Michael appears to think about that for a moment, then nods.

Of course, Michael’s got like five different pockets in that suit, and doesn’t seem to be capable of conveying which pocket, exactly, the keys are in (if he even knows himself, which, no, probably not), so Geoff sighs and starts rifling through the suit himself. Maybe he _should_ have had Jack come help. “I’d like to think you’ve learned a lesson through all this,” he says absently.

“Yeah,” Michael groans. “Never trust old ladies.”

Geoff laughs, and then Michael’s leaning forward against him and burying his face in the crook of Geoff’s neck, and, fuck. “Michael,” he manages.

“Standing is hard,” Michael says, almost incomprehensibly. He’s got nearly his whole weight leaned up against Geoff, and they’re swaying back and forth a little on that front step with Geoff’s hands in Michael’s pockets.

Geoff isn’t entirely sure he isn’t going to keel over and die on Michael’s welcome mat. “C’mon, kid—”

“You smell good,” Michael mumbles into his neck.

_Keys_ , Geoff thinks, almost desperately, and then by some miracle his right hand closes around them. “Alright, let’s get you inside,” he says, struggling to sound less like he’s choking on air.

Michael murmurs something Geoff doesn’t understand, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s getting the front door open, shepherding Michael inside, and pulling the door shut behind them. It’s dark in the house, and he fumbles blindly along the wall for the light switch, but Michael makes the most pathetic noise in the world when the front hall light comes on, so he sighs and turns it off again.

It’s about thirty steps from the front door to the master bedroom, but it may as well be on the other side of town for how long it takes him to get Michael there.

“I had a good time,” Michael mumbles when he finally collapses onto the bed. “Thanks, Geoff.” He flashes Geoff a messy grin, hair mussed and suit rumpled, and Geoff’s heart decides to take up permanent residence in the general vicinity of his throat.

Instead of doing something stupid, he just gives Michael a smile and a nod and starts fighting to get Michael’s suit jacket and tie off at the very least. It’s not until he tosses the tie to the side that he realizes the house has a pulse of _empty, empty, empty_ , and he wonders, not for the first time, when Michael’s fiancé was here last. “Where’s—”

“Working,” Michael sings out, flopping onto his back on the bed, limbs splayed out. “He’s fucking out of town _working_ , man.”

“I’m,” Geoff starts, not sure how to respond.

“Does that sound believable to you?” Michael asks abruptly. He’s still on his back, like he’s talking to the ceiling, but his words are quiet and slurred and exhausted. “That he’s always working? Do you buy that? ‘Cause I did, Geoff. I believed it.”

He goes quiet, then, and Geoff stays quiet too, waiting for him to explain, or start making some semblance of sense. When Michael stays silent, he finally sighs and leans over to start tugging Michael’s shoes off for him.

“You wanna tell me what got you so worked up over the phone last night now, kid?” he asks quietly. There’s no response, so he keeps talking, working at Michael’s laces. “I mean, just— You had me pretty worried, is all.” He gives a hard tug and lets one shoe drop to the carpet. “And I know it’s, uh, not my place or anything, but I like to think we’re…friends, you know, so I just. Give half a shit about you. And it sounds like something’s up with you two, and I want you to know you can _talk_ to me about this shit. I won’t judge. I’m completely on your side, here. Team Michael all the way,” he says, laughing a little, and finally manages to work the other shoe off. “I’m here for you. Okay?”

Again, Michael says nothing. Geoff glances over, brow furrowed, and—yep, the kid’s dead asleep, mouth open slightly. He smiles ruefully, letting Michael shoe drop from his hands, and gets to his feet.

“Anyway,” he says, to himself now, “You’re smart. You’ll get this shit worked out. And I’ll…get my shit worked out, too.” He plucks Michael’s glasses from his face and folds them, sets them down carefully onto the bedside table. “Sleep well, buddy.”

He locks the front door from the inside on his way out, gives Jack a tired smile when he gets back into the car.

“You okay?” Jack asks. Yellowing street lamps throw shadows over the dash, and Geoff reaches up to loosen his tie as he settles back in the passenger seat, watching out the window while Jack pulls away from the curb.

“Nah,” Geoff says, the word coming out less harsh than he’d expected. He puts his shoes up on the dash and watches shadows play along the scuff marks on his heels. “But I’ll get there.”

——

Monday puts him on Michael’s couch, which has gotten more comfortable and familiar than the one at his own house at some uncertain point. Michael has eyes only for the television, thumbs working the sticks and buttons of an Xbox controller with a single-minded focus that tends to come, Geoff has found, shortly before an irritated outburst.

It’s easier than it should be to pretend like everything’s fine. Michael’s an open book, shows his cards and wears his emotions on his shirt sleeve, but he’s trying hard to make everything normal, Geoff knows, and so he goes along with it for now.

(It’s a cop-out, really, a coward’s move, but he’s not one hundred percent sure he’s ready to open up the proverbial can of worms—and even if he were, he’s not going to push Michael an inch further than he’s willing to go. Not on this.)

As he watches, a faint, fond smile tugging at his mouth (he stopped trying to hide those a while ago and the world hasn’t ended, so, hey), Geoff realizes that he _knows_ Michael. That somehow, somewhere along the way, he learned all those things you learn about a person when you’re close to them.

Like Michael’s a morning person, and he likes dark chocolate, and only eats pizza crusts if he can dip them in something, and knows all the words to a dozen Taylor Swift songs, and bites only his thumbnails when he’s wound up. He won’t back down from a challenge, and he can rollerblade, and he keeps half-finished boxes of tic tacs everywhere, and he’s got the biggest heart of anybody Geoff knows, and he’s about two seconds from giving up on this mission.

“Fuck this!” Michael finally bursts out.

“Told you to try it using stealth,” Geoff says cheerfully, and then dodges the controller Michael throws in his general direction with a practiced level of equanimity.

Michael flops down onto the couch next to him a moment later, bouncing a little on the cushion with the momentum of his collapse, and lets his head loll back until he’s looking at the ceiling. “Okay, hear me out,” he says.

Geoff waits patiently.

“So, instead of doing whatever horribly boring activity you had planned for us today—”

“Ouch,” Geoff puts in on principle.

“—we just play video games and eat raw cookie dough until one or both of us passes out. Is that cool? I know that doesn’t _seem_ productive, and that’s because it’s totally fucking not, but it’ll make me _feel_ better, and isn’t that what really matters, anyway?”

“Well,” Geoff starts, smiling, but Michael’s on a roll.

“Man, there is all _kinds_ of shit we gotta do still, I know, but I’m just at this point where I’m choosing to ignore all of it? My mom would lecture me so hard if she even knew—they’re gonna fly down for a week,” he adds suddenly.

“Your parents?” Geoff asks curiously.

Michael nods. “Yeah, they’re coming down from Jersey. My mom’s so excited; she hasn’t stopped talking about it.” He pauses. “Or, well, about _him_. Like whenever I call ninety-nine percent of the conversation is her asking about him. She fucking _loves_ him,” Michael mutters, and Geoff can’t tell if he’s imagining the bitterness there or not.

For weeks, he’ll wonder what possesses him to say it: “Do you?”

Michael’s head snaps up, eyes locking with Geoff’s, and a complicated series of expressions flit over his face in a fraction of a second before he looks away, jaw tight.

Geoff feels his face burn hot with shame. “I didn’t mean— _Shit_ , Michael, I’m sorry, that was fucking stupid, I wasn’t trying to say—”

“No,” Michael says quietly. He’s staring down at his hands, shoulders hunched a little. “No, dude, I know exactly what you were trying to say. You think I don’t notice? You’re real fucking obvious about it.”

For a moment, Geoff can’t say anything, nearly fucking tunnel visions with how thrown off and abruptly terrified he is. “I— Wait—”

“You and Ray,” Michael continues, and Geoff’s breath leaves him in a sudden, confused rush. “Both of you can’t fucking stand him. You haven’t even fucking _met_ him and you don’t like him.”

“Michael,” Geoff tries helplessly, but Michael’s not looking at him, body language all tense, and Geoff can’t tell whether he’s angry or upset or both.

“And the thing is, you’re both fucking _right_ ,” Michael says. His voice shakes a little; Geoff flashes back to the phone call and wants to reach out, but can’t quite force himself to close that distance. “You’re both fucking right, but what the _fuck_ am I supposed to do at this point?”

“Michael,” Geoff says again, a little louder this time. Michael turns to look at him, finally, and Geoff feels something in him shake apart at the torn expression on Michael’s face, and suddenly there’s nothing he can say that won’t lead to him saying too much. “I’m sorry,” he settles on eventually, quietly.

For a few moments, it’s quiet, and then:

“You should go,” Michael says. There’s no anger in his voice, just muted exhaustion, like a sigh. “I just—You should go, I think. I gotta—Just, please,” he finishes, and Geoff’s only been here for half an hour, but he lets Michael usher him to the front door, movements mechanical and stilted, and he wants to _say_ something, knows he should, but he’s terrified that if he opens his mouth, he won’t be able to stop until he’s said _everything_.

So he lets Michael say, “See you next week,” and shut the door in his face, and he sits in his car for a long, long minute before finally forcing himself to pull away from the curb.

——

So Geoff goes home and gets drunk at three in the afternoon, drinks to stay drunk until late, late at night, when he’s out of everything but the stuff that tastes like cleanser, like gasoline, like guilt and loneliness if someone liquefied and bottled them. The booze roils in his stomach but he doesn’t end up on the bathroom floor, like his body wants to hold the poison in his system as a punishment for feeling.

He doesn’t end up on the bathroom floor.

He doesn’t dig his phone from his pocket.

He doesn’t dial and leave a drunken voicemail, doesn’t say _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love you, I’m sorry_.

What he _does_ do is drink until the whole world blurs over, until he’s not feeling with every atom of his body, open and raw like an exposed nerve. Drinks until his head swims with rolling, crashing waves that make his eyes shut tight.

(Wakes to a splitting headache, a concerned voicemail from Jack, a bizarre online shopping history, and a half-baked, blindingly hungover plan.)

——

Next week, when Michael opens the door, Geoff thrusts a stuffed toy in his face.

Michael takes it automatically, looking startled, and then holds it at arm’s length to get a better look at it. After a moment, his expression softens. “Huh.”

It’s a stuffed Makar, one of the characters from Wind Waker, and it’s two feet tall and cost Geoff a pretty fucking penny at some online shop. It’s also kind of adorable, and probably geared towards ten year olds, and definitely not the appropriate way to apologize to someone for questioning the validity of their relationship with their fiancé—it’s like something you get your girlfriend after you do something stupid and make her cry, actually, and abruptly this all feels even _more_ idiotic than it did when Geoff came up with the idea in the first place. He fights the urge to turn tail and run back to the safety of his car.

But Michael’s running his thumbs over the fabric of the doll, a slow, fond smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He looks up, shaking his head. “You are,” he says slowly, a peculiar tone in his voice, “fucking incredible.”

Geoff’s not sure if that’s an insult or not. “Would you believe me if I said it sounded like a good idea at the time?” he asks, wanting to put his hands over his face, but resisting, because he is a Grown Fucking Man who can face his idiotic decisions head on.

“No,” Michael says, amused.

“Okay, well, it didn’t really even sound like a good idea at the time,” Geoff admits. “I just sort of have this compulsion to throw money or presents or whatever at my problems instead of just, ah, admitting I was a total ass and actually apologizing.” He gives in and runs a hand down his face. “Look, here, give it, I can probably return it—”

“No,” Michael says again, quicker this time, and Geoff’s not sure if he imagines the way Michael pulls the toy a little closer to himself, expression stubborn. “It’s mine. You gave it to me. Now you have to wallow in your embarrassment.”

“This is not the way I envisioned this going,” Geoff says, mostly to himself, but he’s fighting a smile.

Michael looks at him for a long moment, hovering in the doorway, and he’s still running his fingers over the toy when he asks, “Do you wanna go get lunch somewhere?”

——

They end up at a little diner Geoff’s never heard of before, settled in the back corner booth that’s so cramped their knees bump together if one of them shifts. They order burgers and share a basket of fries, and their fingers brush every so often. It’s electrifying each time, a thousand volts, and Geoff repeats _professional, professional, professional_ in his head like a holy mantra.

“I met David through work,” Michael says out of nowhere.

Geoff glances up. For probably the first time, Michael doesn’t look annoyed when he’s talking about his fiancé. He looks resigned.

“My boss sent me to go fix his shower, and I forgot to shut off the water before I started. It was one of my first jobs with the company, so I was sort of nervous, and I wasn’t thinking, I guess.” He laughs and toys with his napkin. “And so I get soaked, obviously, and start swearing, real loud. So he comes in, and for a second he’s just staring at me, and I’m thinking he’s gonna tell me to leave and call my boss and ask for someone who’s not a complete fuckup, you know? But then he starts laughing.”

Geoff can’t help but smile a little despite himself, imagining it.

“So he gets me a towel, and he shuts off the water and then just hangs with me in the bathroom while I fix the shower, and we talk about— Fuck, I don’t even remember. Generic stuff, I guess. And as I’m finishing up, he asks me if I want to go get drinks with him that night.”

“And you said yes.”

“And I said yes,” Michael agrees. “I mean, I think I said, like, _nothing_ for a really long time. Because here’s this guy, right, he’s fucking rich as shit and really attractive, and I’m a handyman who hits maybe six out of ten on a good day.”

Geoff opens his mouth to protest, but he’s staying professional today, or at least really trying, so he shuts it again.

Michael rips off a section of his napkin. “And the rest is, like, history or whatever.” A flicker of something passes over his face, too quickly for Geoff to read. “Except not, I guess. I moved in with him and everything was all happy-go-lucky bullshit, honeymoon puppy love phase, and then he just. Stops. Everything. Working all the time, always out of town, not calling me. I thought, for a while I thought maybe he was—” He breaks off and glances down at the table, littered with pieces of the napkin he’s ripped to shreds at this point.

And Geoff isn’t breathing anymore, terrified to break the moment, because even though he’s trying to be professional, even though this is a side of Michael that doesn’t belong to him, he wants desperately to know what’s going on in Michael’s head.

“When he proposed,” Michael continues finally, quietly, and Geoff’s breath escapes him like a deflating balloon, “I thought this was gonna be how we fixed things. However the fuck they got broken in the first place. Because I figured he’d have to _be_ here. To help plan. I thought this was his way of saying he wanted to have things go back to the way they were, but it’s worse now. He’s never home, and when he is he barely _looks_ at me, and I haven’t gotten _laid_ in—I don’t even _know_ how long anymore, a fucking long time, which is really fucking infuriating, because—” He breaks off again and seems to gather himself. “Anyway. It sucks. Everything’s worse. Fucking everything.” He pauses, eyes flicking up briefly, and smiles faintly. “Sorry. That was like straight out of the mouth of me as a thirteen year old goth kid. Not _everything’s_ worse.”

And Geoff reads way too much into that, because of course he does, all reckless and hopeful, warmth blooming in his chest, and, fuck, he’s definitely not getting any professional wedding planner points right now.

Michael’s ripping at the napkin again, shredding the shreds. “But, like, the invitations are already out and the venue’s booked and the wedding cake got commissioned and my _parents_ , what the fuck would they even _say_ if I—” He falls silent with a grimace and sweeps the napkin pieces to the other end of the table. “Have you ever felt like you’re so far into something it’s too late to back out?” he asks finally.

_No_ , is what Geoff thinks immediately, because Michael doesn’t _have_ to get married, you always have control over what you do, it’s never too late to back out of something like that—

But then he realizes that every time he decides to start being more professional, it backfires; he’s out at lunch with Michael and listening to him spill his heart out, all honest earnesty, and Geoff’s encouraging it, needing it, listening and watching, intoxicated by it.

He’s so far gone with Michael that there’s no chance of backing out, no chance of coming out of this clean, and so:

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I’ve felt like that.”

They’re both quiet for a moment. Then Michael sighs, fingers slipping under his glasses frames to rub at his eyes. “I think maybe we should hold off on the planning for a little while,” he says, and Geoff thinks he’s too young to look this tired. “Just— I need to sort some shit out.”

To his credit, Geoff only thinks for a second about what that means, about when he’ll get to see Michael next, a hot second that makes him realize their whole goddamn friendship rides on the coattails of a broken relationship, which is probably the saddest fucking thing Geoff’s ever thought.

Then he’s switching gears, because at least he’s still capable of keeping a hold of himself when it matters most. “That’s fine,” he says, infinitely more casual than he feels, pulling out his phone and looking through Michael’s schedule. “We’ve got that champagne order coming in next week for the tasting to figure out what you want to serve at the reception, but I think there’s still time to cancel it.”

“Are you kidding?” Michael says, and it’s not his full-strength smile, but there’s a hint of a dimple there that makes all the tense coils that settled in Geoff’s chest start to unwind. “I’m not passing up expensive booze on my David’s dime. Come over on Monday. Leave the stupid fucking binders at home. Let’s have _fun_.”


	5. Chapter 5

Geoff wonders if there’s ever been a time he’s driven across town to Michael’s place not feeling either pathetically excited or incredibly hesitant, one extreme or the other. Being so self-aware of his own emotions _sucks_. It means he catches himself in the middle of every fond smile and every sudden, uncontainable desire to reach out and touch, like he needs to remind himself Michael’s real.

The slightly manic look in Michael’s eyes from last week, the insistence to stop all wedding preparations, to drink their way through all the fancy champagne samples coming in on Michael’s fiancé’s dime—it makes him hesitant, just a little, makes him sit in his car a minute or so longer than strictly necessary.

But he finds himself standing at Michael’s front door as sure as ever, knocking one-two-three times and standing back and waiting.

He’s not expecting Michael’s muffled voice to drift out from somewhere inside the house. “Door’s open!”

That’s new. Geoff frowns a little and lets himself in, goes automatically for the living room, but Michael’s changing up all kinds of things today. He finds the kid at the kitchen table, not quite slumped over in one of the chairs, a half-empty champagne flute held in fingers that are a little too wobbly for Geoff to believe that’s his first glass.

Michael looks up and smiles at him, tips the glass towards him in a toast that nearly spills some of the champagne out. “Hey. You’re fired.”

Geoff’s stomach drops. “What?”

“ _Fiiiiired_ ,” Michael repeats, singing it out. “No more wedding.”

“No more wedding?” Geoff echoes, struggling to catch up.

“Poof,” Michael adds, like that clarifies anything.

“Poof,” Geoff repeats, waiting patiently now.

Michael’s smile crumples. “Found out David’s been sticking his dick into some guy who probably doesn’t even know I exist every times he goes up to Houston.”

Geoff waits for the sickening surprise. It doesn’t come. There’s just a dull ache deep in his chest, and resignation, and he takes a couple steps towards the table. “Michael—”

“Found out like three weeks ago.”

Geoff freezes. “ _What?”_

“Suspected it even longer than that.” Michael shrugs.

Geoff counts back the weeks automatically, reeling. “So the night you called me—”

“I was having a big, stupid breakdown like a little bitch,” Michael says bitterly, “because David left his email up and I saw fucking _months_ of messages between him and some guy he works with. Talking about when they’re gonna get the chance to hook up. Exchanging hotel room numbers. All that stupid, cliché shit.”

“You’ve known for three weeks?” Geoff says, because he’s stuck on that.

Michael looks some awful combination of angry and heartbroken. “I thought— I thought I could fix it, I guess, I dunno,” he says. “Like a pathetic, delusional piece of shit.” He scowls down into the champagne flute and tips his head back, drains it. “But I was fucking wrong about that one.”

Geoff sits down heavily in one of the other chairs, quiet for a few moments, working futilely to get his thoughts together. “What happened?” he asks finally, quietly.

Michael curls towards him automatically, satellites orbiting one another always. “Couldn’t pretend like I didn’t know anymore,” he mutters. “Last night he was getting ready to leave for Houston again, and I just… I told him I knew. Told him I knew everything.” He laughs without any humor. “And he just fucking—he just fucking _looks_ at me, no fucking expression, and asks me what I think we should do. Doesn’t even fucking say he’s _sorry_. I don’t think he _is_.”

Geoff can’t even begin to try to hide his fury. “What the hell did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“ _Nothing?”_

Michael laughs again, a little abashed. “I, uh. Punched him in the face. Broke his fucking nose.”

Geoff’s savagely pleased. “Good.”

Michael looks up, surprised, but Geoff’s _glad_ , Michael’s actions having satisfied a long-standing desire to hit the asshole himself. He’s still pissed, still aches, still wants to pull Michael close and pull the hurt out of him, but he’s relieved and fiercely proud of the kid for finally putting himself first.

“You should have called me,” Geoff says. “You should have told me not to come today, I didn’t know—”

“No.” Michael looks stricken. “No, fuck, I wanted you to come, I wanted to see you, I didn’t want— Didn’t wanna sit here in this bullshit empty house and get drunk by myself in the middle of the afternoon.” He lets out this hiccupping laugh like he’s on the verge of tears and stares down at his empty glass. “I wanted to see you.”

Something in Geoff’s chest unfurls. He stands. Grabs the half-empty bottle of champagne and another glass from the counter. Rests one hand on Michael’s shoulder while he fills both their glasses, then sits down again. “Well,” he says, lifting his glass in a toast. “Here I am.”

——

“Ray came over late last night after everything went to shit,” Michael says. They’d moved into the living room somewhere between one glass of champagne and the next, collapsing on the couch and keeping the bottle and their mostly empty glasses in arm’s reach on the coffee table. Michael’s pressed against him, nearly horizontal on the couch, the warm weight of him a sure comfort. Geoff’s not sure if it’s the alcohol or the circumstances that keeps him from panicking at the proximity, at the way Michael doesn’t quite bury his face against Geoff’s shoulder. “Didn’t even say ‘I told you so.’”

“Really?”

“I figure I’ve got at least a couple more days before he breaks out the ‘next time how about you listen to me when I tell you a dude’s garbage’ thing.”

Geoff laughs, cards a hand through Michael’s hair in a sympathetic, soothing gesture. He’s not drunk—and it’s a good thing the drinking is slowing down, otherwise he’d get there quick—but he’s definitely tipsy, warm and loose and unabashed in his own tactility.

Michael’s not quite as hammered as he was the day of the wedding at the park, but his eyelids are half-masted and there’s a slight slur to some of his words, and he’s suction-cupped to Geoff’s side like they’re in a blizzard and need to huddle together for warmth. Geoff looks at his flushed cheeks and makes a mental note to make him down a glass of water later.

It’s quiet for a few minutes. Geoff watches Michael’s eyes slide shut, and refuses to acknowledge his own fond smile as he rubs his thumb back and forth across the kid’s shoulder.

He’s half certain Michael’s fallen asleep when he hears a mumbled, “Geoff.”

He glances down. Michael’s watching him, eyes a little glassy. “Yeah, buddy?”

“‘m sorry I dragged you into all this shit.”

“Hey,” Geoff says, frowning. “Hey, no, don’t do that. You didn’t drag me into anything.”

“If I didn’t hire you—”

“Michael,” Geoff says firmly, gently. “If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be.”

Michael goes quiet for a moment. Then his brow furrows. “But—”

“But nothing. Shh.”

“But _Geoff_ —”

“Shh,” Geoff hushes again, reaching down clumsily to cover Michael’s mouth with his hand and humming a little ‘I’m not listening’ tune until Michael lets out a muffled huff of a laugh and pries his hand away.

“Okay, okay,” he relents. His expression goes soft, suddenly. “Thanks, Geoff.”

Geoff smiles. “Anytime, kiddo.”

Michael’s still looking at him. “I’m glad it’s over,” he says abruptly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Michael says, straightening up. “Means I can do _this_.”

“Do what?” Geoff asks—or would have asked, if Michael hadn’t grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him in and kissed him.

And it’s awkward and messy, because Geoff’s thrown off and Michael’s drunk, but, oh. _Oh_. The hot, wet slide of Michael’s mouth is nothing but deliberate, and he ends up in Geoff’s lap so quick he must have been planning the move, and Geoff lets out a helpless noise as he kisses back, finally, with everything he’s got.

For a few moments, his brain totally checks out for lunch, overloaded with _fuck_ and _holy shit_ and _Michael, Michael, Michael_. But then he feels clumsy fingers fumbling with the zipper of his jeans, and he breaks away, gasping, floundering.

“Wait,” he manages. “Fuck, Michael, wait, hold on.”

Michael’s still straddling his lap, still chasing his mouth, and it seems to take a couple seconds for the words to process. He leans away finally, confusion and rejection flashing across his face in a way that makes Geoff’s chest ache, makes him want to reel Michael back in and kiss him until he forgets what it feels like to be hurt. “I thought— I’m sorry, _shit_ , I thought you wanted—”

“I do,” Geoff says hastily, desperately. “God, sweetheart, I do, I just don’t want—” _To be your rebound fuck_ , he doesn’t say, because he’s not intoxicated enough to be quite that pathetic yet. “To do this when you’re drunk,” he finishes finally.

Michael looks frustrated. “But I _want_ you.” He lets out a self-abating little laugh. “I’m drunk and I’m sad and I want you.”

“You’re killing me, kid,” Geoff groans. It doesn’t help that Michael’s still in his lap, that Geoff can feel the slight but unmistakable pressure of his dick when he shifts.

“Please?” Michael’s eyes are wide, pleading, like he knows that’s going to hit Geoff where it hurts the most, and it’s all he can do not to surrender.

“Look,” he says quietly. “I need this to—mean something. Be something. Something that’s not, uh, drunken fumbling you might not remember when you wake up.” He shakes his head, can’t find the words he wants. “But, god, don’t think for a fucking second that I don’t want you. Because I do. I want to lay you out and take you apart so good you forget your own name. And his.”

Michael says nothing. He’s flushed, not just from the alcohol, eyes bright and throat working visibly as he swallows—and, alright, there’s something satisfying about that; Geoff takes a moment to be smug despite the fact that he just cockblocked himself.

“Okay,” Michael whispers. “Okay.” And Geoff’s expecting him to finally get off his lap, but Michael just leans forward, leans against him, buries his face in the crook of his neck and mumbles, “Is this okay?”

Is it _okay?_ Except for the part where Michael’s somehow made him de-age fifteen years and he’s in serious danger of getting a painfully obvious boner just from feeling Michael’s breath on his neck, sure.

But, “It’s more than okay,” Geoff says, because it is. Because Michael needs it, and Geoff’s been craving it for what feels like a century, and, fuck, he’s only human, he’s going to let them have this, just for a little while.

Michael dozes. Geoff lets him, traces fingertips along his shoulders, his spine, cards a hand through his hair, listens to the air conditioning click on and off for a while. It takes longer than it should for him to notice the stuffed toy he’d gotten for Michael sitting in one of the chairs across the room, and he hopes he’s not imagining the careful, deliberate placement of it or the way it already looks well-worn. He smiles at it, regardless.

“I finished Wind Waker,” he says when Michael stirs awake sometime later.

Michael rubs his eyes and blinks sleepily at him, hair mussed. Geoff forces himself not to think about how much he wants to see Michael just after waking up all the time. “Yeah?” he murmurs, smiling a little. “What’d you think?”

This is safe territory. Geoff’s helplessly grateful that Michael’s playing along. “Fuck, it was good,” he says, and he means it. “Made me wish I’d played the other games years ago.”

There’s another lull, and Geoff seems to notice the time at the same moment Michael does, realizes that it’s way past time for their usual session to end, that the sun is going to start sinking low in the sky before long.

“I have them,” Michael blurts suddenly, a little desperate. “The other games, I— I have them here. If you want to stay a little longer.” And Michael doesn’t have to say _please_ for Geoff to hear it in his voice.

And Michael doesn’t have to say _don’t leave me here alone_ for Geoff to decide he’s never going to do that again.

And so, “Yeah,” he says, and he feels the way Michael’s full weight presses against him as he lets out a relieved breath. “Yeah, Michael, I’ll stay as long as you want.”

——

( _I gotta try to find an apartment somewhere_ , Michael says later. _Ray’s gonna let me crash on his couch for a couple weeks, but I— I can’t stay here, so I’m gonna— I’m gonna try to find a cheap apartment someplace._

And then _I have a guest bedroom_ , Geoff finds himself saying. He doesn’t look at Michael looking at him. _I mean— If you don’t want to sleep on a couch._ He feels his face warming slightly and practically trips over himself trying to end the conversation before he makes a total idiot out of himself. _It’s just something to think about, whatever—_

_Sure_ , Michael says, and the grin in his voice is louder than the panic in Geoff’s, makes Geoff pause and look at him, wide-eyed. _That’d be great. That’d be really great._ )

And then it’s like every story, where two weeks stretches into Longer, stretches into Michael putting money into groceries and electric bills and it’s effortless, somehow, and Geoff doesn’t have to tell Michael not to hurry with finding an apartment, and he doesn’t have to say that he’s gotten used to living his life around another person, that it’s better now, that it’s more complicated and simpler all at once and he’s not really sure he knows how to cook for one anymore, anyway.

And that’s it.

They sit too close on the couch sometimes, and they knock arms and hips in the kitchen on their early mornings, and Michael’s fingers brush his own when he hands off a mug of coffee (the kid’s crazy about his latte machine and he’s a morning person besides; Michael’s like an excitable puppy, bouncing around the kitchen like a ball in a pinball machine, “let’s go, let’s _go_ ,” and those mornings always seem to coincide with the days Geoff feels every year of his age concentrating in his lower back, but he wouldn’t trade it away, not for anything).

But that’s it. They go grocery shopping together and Michael flies down the aisles balanced on the grocery cart and laughs in the face of every frowning, disapproving suburban soccer mom, and they play video games until three in the morning, and Geoff hauls Michael into the guest room that’s not a guest room anymore when he drinks a little too much and can’t seem to manage the trek down the hall on his own, and they don’t talk about the kiss, and they don’t talk about kissing again. They orbit around each other in bizarre, quiet domesticity, and that’s fine, and that’s it, and Geoff feels nothing, nothing at all.

——

That’s not it.

That’s not it, because Geoff feels _everything_ , every interaction, every touch, every smile—he feels it with every raw, exposed nerve he has. He wonders if he imagines the tension, the meaning in the smiles, the looks, the touches. He wonders if he imagines the heat in some of Michael’s glances, the way the air between them crepitates, feverish and saccharine.

He’s not sure if he wants it to be all in his head or not.

When the fever breaks—because it does, because of course it does—it’s a Friday night after a week of hell, in the living room, lights off, bathed in the glow of shitty reality TV. Geoff’s only half paying attention, nearly asleep, rocking sweat pants and an old t-shirt flecked with paint. The fever breaks when he’s exhausted, when he feels a hundred and ten and looks like he just rolled out of bed, which is typical, really.

In the middle of a commercial break, the lock clicks and the front door opens.

Geoff can’t help the soft, content sigh that escapes him—he’s already given up on denying that this place really only feels like home when Michael’s here. Basically, he’s fucked.

He listens to Michael bustle around, knows his patterns so well that he anticipates Michael’s trek—the bathroom, his bedroom, the kitchen, and finally the living room.

Michael vaults himself over the back of the couch and jostles Geoff a little when he lands. He sprawls, limbs splayed out, left knee touching Geoff’s right one. “I literally thought the weekend would never get here,” he announces. “Like I was gonna be stuck in retail hell for all eternity.”

Geoff smiles, the way he’s been doing a lot lately whenever Michael talks or laughs or does anything, really. “Yeah?”

“I love the weekend,” Michael says seriously. “If the weekend was personified, I’d fuck it. I’d take it out to dinner and buy it flowers and make sweet, sweet love to it.”

Geoff snorts. “Would the weekend be just one person?” he wonders. “What if Saturday and Sunday are two different people?”

“If you think I wouldn’t fuck Saturday and Sunday at the same time,” Michael starts, and Geoff loses it. Michael grins. “Listen, Geoff, I will rock that hypothetical threesome.”

Geoff tips his head back against the back of the couch and laughs up at the ceiling, the week’s stress leaching from him slowly as Michael starts to giggle next to him and shifts to lean against him solidly.

When Geoff lifts his head again, Michael’s looking at him thoughtfully, and Geoff raises an eyebrow at him in an unsaid _what’s up?_

There’s a pause. Michael’s a little tense, and Geoff can feel the warmth of him, can feel the shift of his muscles as he moves to bring their faces closer, eyes wide and cautious and searching. Geoff realizes he’s holding his breath.

“I’m super sober right now,” Michael announces, apropos of nothing.

Geoff stares at him. “Okay?”

“In case you start thinking this doesn’t mean anything,” he adds, and then they’re kissing.

Or— Michael’s kissing Geoff, really, because what Geoff is doing is following what’s becoming the tried-and-true tradition for what he does every time Michael does something overwhelming, which is freeze up like an awkward teenager on his first date.

When the rusty gears in Geoff’s brain finally start to turn, they offer up the thought that this isn’t how he’d been planning on this to go. He’d had vague ideas about taking Michael out to dinner and having a heart-to-heart and probably bringing up Michael’s fiancé and the break-up and _feelings_ and just getting sappy in general, instead of making out sprawled out on Geoff’s ancient couch in sweatpants, but.

They’ve waited long enough, he thinks.

And so he responds just before Michael can pull away, comes alive with a gasp, pulls Michael in, slots their mouths together and commits the soft, surprised noise Michael makes to memory.

“Months,” Michael’s muttering somewhere between one kiss and the next. “ _Months_ I’ve been wanting to do this—”

“Months?” Geoff echoes, blinking.

“—and with you running away like a skittish cat every time I fuckin’ sit next to you—”

“Months,” Geoff says again, a little dismayed at his own caution in retrospect.

“—like I wasn’t fuckin’ ready to go from the second you kissed me back that first time,” Michael’s still muttering, heavy New Jersey accent bleeding into his muffled words as he nips at Geoff’s lower lip. “Wasn’t even that fuckin’ tipsy.” Geoff’s not responding, slightly slack-jawed. “ _What_.”

“Give me a minute. I need to grieve all the orgasms I could’ve had.”

Michael snorts with laughter, light in his eyes as he shifts to straddle Geoff, ducks down to press their foreheads together, and gives another quiet, gasping laugh in response to Geoff’s helpless noise when he rocks downwards slowly, deliberately. “We’ll spend the weekend playing catch-up.”

“I was gonna take you on a date,” Geoff says even as he rolls his hips up, because he needs to make a cursory effort to cockblock himself, apparently. It’s practically tradition at this point.

“We’re fucking _living together_ ,” Michael says. “We have _made the fucking commitment_ , alright, now let me get you off, you romantic piece of shit,” and he has no right to sound as fond as he does.

“Well,” Geoff says, “when you put it that way,” and grins at the exasperated expression on Michael’s face. Cuts him off before he can say anything, makes him choke on a breath by grabbing at his thighs and pulling him down in tandem with the next upward roll of hips, and god, there’s something satisfying about finally, finally being able to do this.

It’s not elegant or mind-blowing, not all slow and sensual in the bedroom after a romantic night out (and, alright, maybe Geoff’s been affected by his career choice more than he’s previously thought; maybe he wants to woo Michael with a fancy dinner and matching napkins and tablecloths, whatever, sue him) or heated and rough in the wake of bar music and too many shot glasses. It’s bone-tired and messy and ruffled and accompanied by the light and sound of television commercials.

But, god, in spite of that or because of it, Geoff doesn’t know, it’s perfect. Just _touching_ him is perfect, is all he’s wanted with every stupid yearning atom of his being. It’s everything. It’s like sinking into a warmth bath. Like pulling on a favorite shirt. Like coming home.

It takes a few minutes of fumbling to hit their stride and find the perfect rhythm, Michael rocking down against him with breaths that hitch on the inhale and shudder on the exhale, and he wants to spend a hundred years just mapping Michael out, memorizing the way he responds to every incidental touch—because Michael’s whole _body_ lights up under his hands and he’s enthralled by it, addicted to it. Wants to spend ages learning Michael’s body.

And he can, he realizes. Realizes that next time he can lay Michael out and tease him for as long as he wants until Michael’s a gasping wreck beneath him and _Christ_ , it’s a wonder he doesn’t lose it right there just at the thought.

Something must change in the intensity of his movements, because he feels Michael shudder against him, feels his rhythm falter as he breathes out a startled little _Oh_ and buries his face against Geoff’s neck, and—

“Oh my god,” Geoff says shakily, but it’s got the uptick of a question, like he can’t quite believe it.

“Shut up,” Michael mumbles against his throat. “Shut up, don’t _even_ —”

Geoff starts to grin. “Did you just—”

“ _Yeah_ , okay, with you rutting against me like a fucking teenager like that, can’t fucking blame me—”

“You’re eager,” Geoff says, grinning widely now, because he’ll readily admit that he’s an asshole. “It’s cute.”

“At least I can come again, alright, bet you’re gonna shoot once and fall asleep like the old man you are.” Michael’s sulking, Geoff knows it even if he can’t see his face.

And Geoff’s tempted to keep teasing him, or at least keep rocking up against him so he can get off, too, but for some reason he’s content with smiling his fool head off and kissing all over what parts of Michael’s face and neck he can reach until Michael starts to laugh like the vocal equivalent of sunshine and—and—fuck. He loves this fucking kid. He loves him.

He’s about to suggest they move to a bed—because he’s still keen on getting Michael spread out and finding out exactly how he likes to be touched—but Michael leans in to kiss him, slow and deep and exploratory. He pulls a few overwhelmed noises from Geoff and looks deeply satisfied when he pulls away.

“I wanna spend like ten million hours kissing you,” he says solemnly, and Geoff huffs out a laugh, catching his breath. “I can’t believe I can _do_ that now. I can just—kiss you whenever I want.” He looks awed, incredulous, unbelievably lucky—he looks how Geoff feels, basically.

“Yeah,” Geoff says, and he wonders when the last time he stopped smiling was. “Yeah, you can. Whenever you want. All fucking night, if you want.”

“Oh, definitely. I mean, that goes without saying. But first,” Michael adds casually, shifting off of the couch and sliding to kneel on the floor, “I’m gonna make you come.”

Geoff chokes on air.

And Michael swallows him down _perfectly_ , like he’s known how to work Geoff over for years, holds his hips down so he doesn’t rock up into his mouth the way he wants to, and he slides his fingers into Michael’s hair somewhere between one gasping swear and the next. Michael hums around him appreciatively, and Geoff—

“So what were you saying?” Michael questions, all wide-eyed innocence, after he swallows. “About being eager? And how cute it is?” There’s cum on his lower lip. Geoff is going to _die_.

“I’m going to die,” Geoff announces.

Michael grins at him and runs his tongue over his lip. Geoff groans, long and loud, and lets himself fall sideways onto the couch cushions.

They never end up making it to a bed. When Michael suggests they move, Geoff just pulls Michael onto the couch, and after some obligatory grousing, Michael wraps around him, their legs intertwined, head tucked up under Geoff’s chin, comfortable like they’ve always fit together that way.

If Geoff’s honest, there’s a part of him that’s waiting for the panic. The guilt. The scramble of _Is this okay?_ that plagues him every time he and Michael are too close.

Instead, there’s just the continuation of the gentle warmth that’s settled in the center of his chest, like everything’s exactly the way it’s supposed to be.

Geoff feels Michael’s breath even out eventually, feels him go lax and drift off with one hand curled into the hem of Geoff’s shirt.

And, hell. If this is exactly the way things are supposed to be, Geoff’s pretty sure he can get used to this.

——

So, okay. He’s a romantic.

He can hem and haw and _I’m never having a big fancy wedding I’m eloping in Vegas_ all he wants—he’s a romantic at heart. Side effect of his job, really.

So despite Michael’s exasperated commentary, he does the candlelit dinners and the _feelings_ and the matching tablecloths and napkins.

And Michael rolls his eyes and shakes his head, and smiles privately when he thinks Geoff isn’t looking, and kisses the hell out of Geoff at every given opportunity, like he’s making up for lost time.

Geoff gets that.

(He barely gets three syllables into a greeting to Jack on the phone before Jack amicably says, “Congratulations! And fucking finally.”

Geoff pauses. Frowns. “How—”

“There’s no other reason you could _possibly_ sound that happy. So when are you two double dating with me and Caiti?”)

The guest bedroom that became Michael’s room goes back to being a guest bedroom. Geoff maintains that the only downside of this is that Michael turns out to be a morning person _immediately_ upon waking up, and Geoff might jump out the bedroom window in his boxers if he has to wake up to Michael bouncing on the bed to the tune of some Top 40s pop song one more time.

(“You love it,” Michael shouts happily, nearly bouncing Geoff out of the bed at seven in the morning, and, well. Geoff has to admit that he does.)

Time passes. Geoff waits for the “honeymoon period” to end, but it never seems to. He’s just as crazy about Michael the first winter they’re together as he is during the second one. And the third. (Despite all the faux-retching noises Ray makes whenever they hang out with him.)

They talk about David sometimes. Michael gets better about it. Makes his peace with it. Decides the best revenge is a happy life (and bragging PDA pictures on Facebook, but Geoff figures that’s better than decking the guy, no matter how much he still wants to), and Geoff’s more than content to make that happen. Hell, David’s the reason they ended up getting together in the end.

Still, for all the good it ultimately did, truth is, Geoff and Michael sort of _sucked_ at planning a wedding together.

But… Geoff’s a romantic. And so he’s got another candle-lit dinner planned at home, and a ring in a box, and a sappy speech he’s probably going to mess up in mind.

He’s pretty confident that planning a wedding with Michael is gonna go a lot better the second time around.

**Author's Note:**

> if you do the tumblr thing, i've got a writing/inspiration blog here: http://anarchetypal.tumblr.com/ a lot of writing gets posted here that i don't cross-post to ao3, so feel free to take a look!


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